On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:15:47 -0800, Ed Suominen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Unfortunately,  even after all this time has passed, there still doesn't
seem to be any solid footing for maintaining a Twisted-based web server.

This is definitely a big problem.  The fact that web2 hasn't stabilized yet is actually 
an indication that things are going to get better.  We are trying to minimize the number 
of half-supported revisions out there, so that when web2 is released as 
"stable", there is a clear, defined migration path.

I understand your frustration, and to some extent, I even share it - believe 
me, Divmod's life would be a lot easier if web2 were totally stable and 
productionized and we could just move Nevow over to it.

there's not exactly a shortage of Python frameworks.

That's very true.  Unless you have a need for Twisted in your web application, 
there's no particular reason you need to use it.  There's a certain irrational 
exuberance that follows Twisted and related projects around, which sadly 
encourages people to develop apps on top of it that have no compelling reason 
to be on top of it, rather than first contributing the development and 
maintenance effort required to productionize whatever subproject is being used.

It's important to get some perspective, though.  Crummy as the current web 
situation is in Twisted, there is an INSANE amount of stuff in the TwistedVerse 
right now even if you don't look beyond the small sphere of the Twisted project 
and the Divmod repository.  There is a group of maybe two dozen people (and 
that's being really optimistic) maintaining a list of project that competes, at 
least partially, with each of the following projects that corresponds to a 
category of software:

apache (web/web2)
turbogears (nevow/mantissa)
asterisk (sine)
sqlobject (axiom)
skype (shtoom)
jabberd (words)
gaim (words.im, MOST, etc)
bind (names)
wordpress (quotient, eventually hyperbola)
exim (xquotient)
nnptd (twisted.news)
cyrus (twisted.protocols.imap4, quotient)
ACE (twisted.internet)
openssh (twisted.conch)
ncurses (twisted.conch.insults)
docbook (twisted.lore)
ORBit (twisted.pb)
inetd (twisted.runner)
jUnit (trial)

Then you have projects like Vertex and Radical, for which there _is_ no 
meaningful competitive space yet, because they're so unique.

Granted, in each of these categories, most of the alternatives to Twisted are 
more full-featured than the Twisted project at this point.  However, this is an 
_absolutely insane_ amount of code to have been written by the tiny number of 
people who work on Twisted on a regular basis.  There is no other project which 
even comes remotely close to having this much functionality available for 
integration into a single paradigm (and not only that, a single process, if you 
want).  On each of those competitive projects, there is a comparable number of 
distinct developers to the entire Twisted+Divmod team.  It's overwhelming, and 
maintenance slips sometimes.

Overall, we need HELP.  If you're just a user, every project needs some help.  
Find some bugs in the Twisted or Divmod bugtracker; there are plenty related to 
web2 or Nevow.

That said, I continue to be fascinated and impressed by Twisted itself
and have high hopes for it.

Thanks.  It's always nice to hear this.  I guess I just probably explained why 
that is true :).

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