[Twisted-Python] TWN issue #1!

[Chris Armstrong]

* The TwistedPython Weekly News *

1st Issue. Monday, July 2, 2001

QOTW:

  --> java (dutkiewicz at 91.portland-01-02rs.or.dial-access.att.net) has joined
  #python
  <java> yes
  <-- java (dutkiewicz at 91.portland-01-02rs.or.dial-access.att.net) has left
  #python
  <glyph> goodbye, java
  <glyph> hehe, that's surprisingly satisfying to say


Welcome to the TwistedPython Weekly News. This is the first issue, so it will
cover a larger time-frame than a single week. If we find that we do not have
enough news for an issue every week, we may change it to the TwistedPython
Monthly News.

* Progress *

After a period of low activity, there were a lot of new changes in the Twisted
code base. Here are some summaries.

* Refactorings: Chris Armstrong did a lot of work refactoring both twisted.web
  and twisted.reality. The web refactoring was finished on 2001-06-11 and
  twisted.reality on 2001-06-20. During these refactorings, a change to the
  Coding Standard was required, as Chris found that Python has limitations on
  circular imports in packages. Sibling imports were allowed in this case
  ("import html" instead of "from twisted.web import html").
* Twisted Explorer: Chris started doing an interactive Object Browser that he
  eventually wants to write a Reality front-end to, and has been heard rambling
  about a potential 3d interface.
* Other stuff: There have been other minor hacks lately: Chris started
  rewriting calendar.py, the web calendar, and started the twisted.pim package
  with the 'todo' module. There is a web-based front-end for todo, and an
  instance of it is running here. There have also been a few additions to net
  and authenticator.
* Name Change: There has been talk of a name change. The name "Twisted Python"
  is definitely going, as it can mislead people to believe that it's some sort
  of distribution of Python (Most Python ports/distributions are "Something
  Python"). Two ideas so far are just "Twisted" or "TwistedMatrix".


* Short-term Todo *

Watch out for some cool new things coming to TwistedPython.

* Chris is working on a spell-casting system for Twisted Reality.
* Jason Asbahr will be working on InstanceMessenger, a new messaging system
  based on the new PerspectiveBroker.
* Watch out for twisted.pim. Glyph is getting an Agenda VR3 soon and he wants
  Twisted Python running on it. :)


* Interesting Thing Of the Week:
* The Twisted PerspectiveBroker

After much mucking about, Glyph finally refactored ProxyBroker into
PerspectiveBroker. This is probably the most exciting new development for
Twisted Python in recent time. pb is a replacement for Gloop, which mainly uses
cPickle for serialization of objects. pb, on the other hand, uses 'jelly', a
home-made serialization library which uses S-Expressions. This is going to be a
very central part of TPy, and we're all very excited about it. Go Glyph!

Ok, that's it for this week. Thanks for reading!
Chris Armstrong

-- 
Chris Armstrong                        carmstro at twistedmatrix.com
http://twistedmatrix.com/~carmstro     carmstro at dynup.net