[Python-ideas] Draft PEP: Standard daemon process library

[Ben Finney]

Trent Nelson writes:

> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 08:18:51AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> > Jesse Noller writes:
> > 
> > > I think adding the windows services functionality distracts from
> > > the reasonable goal of the PEP Ben is proposing.
> > 
> > Thanks, this is my position also.
> 
> I disagree. Partly because I'm in a bit of a devil's advocate mood
> at the moment. But mostly because I know what will happen: […]

I respectfully suggest that this isn't true, because your hypothetical
situation continues:

> After poking around the source, I'm perplexed. It's not doing
> anything uniquely Unix-xy,

Your disagreement seems to rest on this assertion, and I don't see how
your hypothetical described can be true. Do you really see the
described behaviour in the current draft PEP as “not doing anything
uniquely Unix-y”?

> just your normal, run-of-the-mill start/stop type stuff.

As far as I can tell, beyond trivial use cases, there is both wide
discrepancy and very little overlap in “start/stop type stuff”
between a Unix daemon and an MS Windows service. At least, none of the
(admittedly few) instructions on MS Windows services I've seen
demonstrate otherwise.

Someone who thinks otherwise is welcome to attempt a PEP that brings
all that behaviour under a single banner *and* design the API to be
both flexible enough to be useful in many use cases and simple enough
to be worth learning instead of doing it manually. That person will
not be me.

-- 
 \      “Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whosoever procures |
  `\        it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and |
_o__)                                      happy purchase.” —J. Balguy |
Ben Finney