[Twisted-Python] [spread] "We're walking, we're walking, we're walking..."

Kevin Turner acapnotic at twistedmatrix.com
Thu Aug 2 04:30:43 EDT 2001


[Yes, I do intend to spend some more time digesting this and working it
into code and perhaps more english, but that won't get done tonight...
So for now, Share and Enjoy!]

IRC log started Thu Aug 02 00:06:16 2001 (PDT -0700)

* Acapnotic pokes glyph

<glyph> Acapnotic: sorry, did you answer before?

<Acapnotic> glyph: Ok, I started the log ten minutes ago for
            you, and so far it mainly consists of descriptions of
            thirmite's van =)

<dash> haha

<thirmite> my van is awsome

<dash> "ph34r my l33t v4n"

<thirmite> heh

<glyph> Acapnotic: OK.  Let's get started then. :)
<glyph> Acapnotic: What do you want to do with PB?

<Acapnotic> glyph: whiteboard, say.  client -> server ->
            many-clients.  but we can start with just half of that.

<glyph> Acapnotic: OK.  First thing you need is a whiteboard
        service on the server.
<glyph> Acapnotic: by "service" I literally mean a subclass
        of pb.Service

<Acapnotic> a pb.Service, okay.  That doesn't have many methods 

<glyph> Acapnotic: crap.  I think I may have changed some naming here
	:-).  Does your version say anything about getPerspectiveNamed?

<Acapnotic> glyph: yes, getPerspectiveNamed(self,name) is
            the only method

<glyph> Acapnotic: Ok, cool.
<glyph> Acapnotic: So you have to implement that method to
        retrieve something that represents a viewer of whiteboards

<glyph> Acapnotic: twisted.reality.plumbing can provide an
        example for this.
<glyph> uh, actually twisted.reality.reality.Reality, now
        that I think of it :)

<dash> reality, reality, REALITY! (ta-daa!)
<dash> glyph: you have such a way with names

<Acapnotic> "a viewer" probably being a front-end?  or the client
            that's got a display attached?

<glyph> dash: everybody has a bad day sometimes :-\

<dash> glyph: no, i like it
<dash> it's a as subtle as a jackhammer :)

<glyph> Acapnotic: It's the back-end, not the front-end.  We're still
        on the server.

<glyph> Acapnotic: whatever you return is the thing that the
        authenticated user is going to be able to call methods on; it
        should be a subclass of pb.Perspective

<Acapnotic> ah, okay, I was derailed for a moment there getting stuck
            on "viewer".  but this isn't just a passive thing, it's
            what we call on to modify the whiteboard as well, ja?

<glyph> yes 
<glyph> hmm, maybe we should do this tomorrow, *AFTER* I check in
        these changes

<Acapnotic> no two days the same, eh?
<Acapnotic> glyph: Ok, then don't give me specifics on every method I
            need to override.  Big picture -- what classes go on which
            end, what talks to what?

<glyph> Acapnotic: welll, after hte handshake we just described,
        you've got a Perspective on the server
<glyph> the client has a Reference to that Perspective
<glyph> so when the client says perspective.foo(bar, baz), the
        server's perspective gets x.perspective_foo(bar, baz) called
        on it

<Acapnotic> glyph: Okay.  And is this one of your "there are no return
            values" areas?
<Acapnotic> yes, because calls are asyncronyous... crap, I can't spell
            these days.

<glyph> Acapnotic: Yes.  There are no return values; if the client
        wants to get a callback when the return value's ready, it
        calls p.foo(bar, baz, pbcallback=qux)

<Acapnotic> glyph: So now I can do whiteboard_author_client->server.
            To do server->whiteboard_audience_client, will I flip this
            around and put a "server" in each client?  (a la X)

<glyph> Acapnotic: No need.
<glyph> Acapnotic: You can just have each interested "listener" pass a
        subclass of "pb.Referenced" into a remote callback, which
        defines a method that the server will call.

<Acapnotic> glyph: so I'm just going to stash a bunch of these
            Referenced callbacks in some private attribute, and then
            run through them whenever I want to talk at them?

<glyph> Acapnotic: essentially, yes.

<Acapnotic> glyph: now you said these subclasses_of(pb.Referenced)
            defined a method to call.  Does that mean I should have
            them __call__able?  Or will I call their methods?  Or is
            that entirely up to me?

<glyph> Acapnotic: Subclasess of pb.Referenced define methods named
        remote_XXX; remoteobj.XXX() on the other side will invoke
        those methods.

<Acapnotic> glyph: and I missed a piece of the handshaking.  Where did
            the client/server connection happen?

<glyph> Acapnotic: that's irrelevant :)
<glyph> the way that happens is just you instantiate a tcp.Client with
        a Broker as the protocol
<glyph> all fo these interactions happen through the pb.Broker
<glyph> (requestPerspective, to be precise)

<Acapnotic> ok, that's good to know, I wouldn't call that irrelevant =)

-- 
"...we're stopped."





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