pyLinda?

[Tim Golden]

(Caveat Lector: I've dabbled with this, but a while ago)

[Gardner Pomper]
| It sounds like pyLinda runs a server process and stores 
| tuples in it. 

That's about. From the "Beginner's Guide" page:
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/aw/pylinda/beginner.html

"""
First a server must be started - linda_server.py
.
.
If you want to add a new computer to the linda network simply 
run 'linda_server.p -c<ip address or dns name>' where the 
computer you supply is already running a linda server.
"""

| How does this work with multiple machines? One 
| server per machine? 

Yes. As above. I suppose one could build some sort
of directory or discovery service if one wanted.
(Haven't tried it; no idea what the pitfalls might be).

| Do you connect to your local server and then that server 
| has some sort of directory that tells it which server 
| holds the object you are looking for? Or are the servers 
| synchronized somehow? 

What you're doing here is matching a tuple, not finding
named objects as such (which is what your "directory"
suggested to me). That said, there is a well-known
("universe") tuplespace which everyone can get hold
of -- don't know what the underlying mechanism is, 
and I don't have the source code to hand. The idea
is that if you create your own tuplespace, you put
*that* tuplespace in the universal one so that 
other processes can pick it up. eg,

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/aw/pylinda/doc/tutorial.html

NB This uses a non-destructive read (_rd) so that any
other process can look for the well-known tuple or
tuple-pattern. (eg you could specify that a new tuplespace
will be published as ("TUPLESPACE", linda.TupleSpace) where 
the second item in the tuple is the tuplespace in question.

| That should get me started. As many others here, I don't have 
| an immediate project for pyLinda, but I would like to 
| understand what it offers better so that I can identity an 
| appropriate project if one appears.

I think the thing it's best suited for is distributed
computing, rather like a sort of networked Python Queue
object (vague hand-waving...).

TJG

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