[Twisted-Python] usage of sessions in twisted.web?

[Steve Waterbury]

Glyph Lefkowitz wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 21 Dec 2002 12:26:04 -0500, Steve Waterbury <waterbug at beeblebrox.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> > We are not using sessions yet, but plan to in the near future.
> 
> Good... the "near future" will be a good time to start :-)

And my usage of the word "near" is very, um, relative there ... ;^)

> > Currently we are using the twisted xmlrpc for communication to our GUI client
> > (developed using wxPython), but we also plan to have a browser interface
> > (almost certainly using Woven), a SOAP interface, and quite possibly others
> > (e.g., PB and/or CORBA).
> 
> Wow!  Did Twisted inspire you to use such a diverse assortment of frontends, or
> was it part of your charter and why you chose it in the first place? :)

Yes.  :^)  It *is* part of our charter (which is to integrate things), 
but the prospects of our actually being able to implement this kind of 
diversity looked pretty slim until I discovered Twisted ... 

> > Do you plan to make your new Sessions implementation general enough to
> > support all of these?
> 
> This is a hard question to answer as asked, so I'll take this opportunity to
> lay out my vision for how multi-protocol "sessions" are supposed to work.
> 
> There are two answers: yes, I plan to make Session part of a system general
> enough to support all of these front-ends.  Also: no, I do not plan to make
> Session general enough to support all these itself :-).  

This is really the best answer I could have hoped for.  

> ... If you've been a good
> disciple of the Twisted Way, you'll have a Service with Perspectives that
> represent the way that users interact with your system.  That's the focal point
> of the conversations your users will have with your abstractions.  ...

Understood.  I'm just beginning work on the authentication aspects 
of our Service, which will use Perspectives and the dbauth stuff.  

> [ nice high-level explanation elided ... ]
> I hope that this explains what how should be expecting to use the
> authentication part of the new twisted.web.woven.guard once it's finished, but
> feel free to ask for clarification.  I really can't think of how to express
> this well :-).

That's just the right amount of explanation for now -- sounds like 
just the thing we'll need.  Please continue your sorcery!  

Thanks!
-- Steve.