Python for large projects?

[Bill Janssen]

Excerpts from ext.python: 27-Jun-99 Re: Python for large projects? Janko
Hauser at ifm.uni-kie (881)

> Jody Winston <jody at ldgo.columbia.edu> writes:

> > I've used Python for three large distributed applications (each > 100k
> > lines of Python).  The only other recommendation that I would add is
> > to define interfaces to the code.  If this is done with a product like
> > ILU or FNORB, you can then easily call the Python code from other
> > languages.  In addition, you can replace critical sections with other
> > languages if needed.
> > 
> I have thought about this as the perfect way to do ``data hiding'',
> publish only special interfaces for your data. Has this a significant
> overhead, if used on one machiene, or is it overkill just for this
> purpose :-)?

I've done this a fair amount with Python and ILU.  I specify the
`public' ILU interface, which anyone can call, then also specify various
other interfaces, private to one more specific management concern or
another.  Typically the private interfaces contain subtypes of the
object types declared in the public interface, with additional methods
that allow more access.  Then I implement only the more-derived object
types in my Python code.  So there's no real overhead in the code or in
the method calls.  The users of the public interface only get to do the
public operations; the more specialized clients get to do the fancier
operations.

Bill