[Tutor] Turning a "script" into an "application"

[Christian Wyglendowski]

Hi fellow Python programmers,

I have created a network monitoring script with Python. It takes some
command line arguments and captures packets from a network interface for
a period of time, performs a simple analysis on the captured packets and
then sends an email to me if the results are outside of set boundaries.
Right now I have the script running every so often using Windows Task
Scheduler.

Rather than use Windows to control my script's behavior, I would like to
add some larger control method to it so it can have persistent (in
memory) data, the ability to control scan parameters from within the
application, the ability to stop and start scans from within the
application, save captured data to file, etc.  I would like to leave
interface options open (text, GUI, web, etc).

What I hope to get from the community here is a nudge in the right
direction.

Do I need to use threads?  Is there some sort of framework already
available that I can build upon?  Is there some programming construct
that lends itself to this sort of problem?  Other ideas that I have not
even thought of?

Thanks for any guidance anyone can give.  This is mostly new territory
for me.

Christian
http://www.dowski.com