[Twisted-Python] Re: In Defense of Taps

Glyph Lefkowitz glyph at twistedmatrix.com
Thu Feb 13 03:39:52 MST 2003


On 13 Feb 2003 00:38:04 +0100, Federico Di Gregorio <fog at initd.org> wrote:
> i started by ignoring *everything* with the word 'tap' in it, mainly
> because i found the terms 'tap' and 'http server' togheter two times and
> was looking for something different. i also completely ignored coil.

> using basic PB (no authentication, yes jellification of classes) was
> easy with the tutorial (about 8h, gtk2reactor fixing included) but
> switching to cred was much more difficult. the documentation was not
> enough to write my first app authenticating the users vs a database and
> providing different perspectives to them (about 2 days).

I'm glad that you found some of these things easy to do.  I also wouldn't argue
that the existing documentation _is_ necessarily sufficient for those use-cases
that you've provided.  However, have you actually looked at all of it yet?  It
does sort of make your feedback less useful to begin with "I began by ignoring
[large portions of documentation] ..." and end with "the documentation was not
sufficient ...".

In particular, have you checked out
http://www.twistedmatrix.com/documents/howto/pb-cred ? The title does not have
the word "cred" in the HTML index, so perhaps you overlooked it?  If so, what's
missing?

> right now we are using twisted for two "work" projects and we plan to
> integrate in it a port of our previous product (easy, transactional db
> access on server side and automatic binding of objects to the gui client
> side, more on that if you people are interested.)

When can you be more specific? :)

> maybe i am a little biased by the fact that our previous framework was
> very similar to PB, but i don't think people approaching twisted are
> interested in yet another http/irc/xxx server (w/ or w/o TAPS.)
> more on the "framework" side, to develop applications or custom
> protocols. 

I wish you were right!  This was not a technology space I really wanted to
address, originally.  Unfortunately, "web" is still hot these days, and Twisted
adds some substantial frosting to the web that just isn't possible with most
other servers.  Most (I would go so far as to say "almost all") of the initial
burst of interest in Twisted happened when I added a web-server, even when the
webserver was crap.  The enigmatic "tenth" put it best in the quotefile:

    <tenth> I get the feeling that I could rack up some ad impressions by
    posting an announcement to [freshmeat] about a webserver "powered entirely
    by love, that I made out of this bong I had".
    <tenth> Well, as long as it did something really l88t that other
    bong-servers didn't do, anyway.

Twisted is not powered entirely by love, so to set the record straight: it is
powered by a glowing green substance that fell to earth, presumably from space.
Do not apply Twisted to your skin or eyes.  Do not taunt "happy fun internet".
For use only as directed.

-- 
 |    <`'>    |  Glyph Lefkowitz: Traveling Sorcerer   |
 |   < _/ >   |  Lead Developer,  the Twisted project  |
 |  < ___/ >  |      http://www.twistedmatrix.com      |
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