[Twisted-Python] Re: Twisted and python-ogre

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Fri Feb 15 21:39:43 EST 2008


Jean-Paul Calderone wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:01:21 +0100, Thomas Boucher 
> <thomas.boucher at student.ecp.fr> wrote:
>> Jean-Paul Calderone a écrit :
>>> Chris Armstrong's response to the post you refer to is accurate.  
>>> Twisted
>>> APIs are not threadsafe.  In order to call them from a thread other than
>>> the one in which the reactor is running, it is absolutely required 
>>> that you
>>> use reactor.callFromThread.  This is quite simple.  Instead of:
>>>
>>>    proto.sendLine("line")
>>>
>>> Simple do:
>>>
>>>    reactor.callFromThread(proto.sendLine, "line")
>>>
>>> You will have to do this for every call you make to a Twisted API 
>>> (except
>>> for reactor.callFromThread, of course ;).
>>
>> I have just tried this method, and it perfectly works.
>> The twisted reactor is run in another thread and the calls to Twisted 
>> are managed by the callFromThread method. The main advantage I see to 
>> it (excepting the fact that it works) is that it does not require 
>> changes in the way the graphic rendering is done : you do not care 
>> about how python- ogre runs to code the twisted part.
>>> The best solution would be to really integrate the two loops.  I 
>>> don't know
>>> the details of OGRE though, so I can't tell you specifically how to 
>>> do this.
>>> It is tightly dependent on the details of the loops being integrated.
>>
>> What I can't see for the moment is how much better it would be to do 
>> like the other ways delivered in the discussion thread (by Werner, 
>> Bernie an Stefan). These ways consist in running Twisted first and in 
>> letting it manage python-ogre (by doing the rendering frame by frame 
>> with coiteration, or loopingcalls).
>> Is this better than doing separate threads ?
> 
> There are arguments about efficiency.  Using threads has overhead which is
> not present when not using threads.  These arguments are probably not very
> convincing in this case, since you would only have two threads and their
> overhead will be dwarfed by your rendering costs.  You should be aware that
> reactor.callFromThread _does_ have some non-trivial overhead.  Using it for
> each sendLine call _could_ have a noticable detrimental impact on your 
> app's
> performance.
> 
> There are arguments about simplicity.  It's harder to understand what a
> multithreaded program is doing.  It's harder to debug a multithreaded
> program.  It's very, very hard to unit test a multithreaded program.  This
> is probably the compelling argument to try to avoid threads.
> 
>>> Because most other event loops are very bad at managing events. :)  
>>> If you
>>> want reasonable network performance, you need a good network event 
>>> loop to
>>> be in control.
>>
>> Don't you think using basic sockets (easy to code in Python) to make 
>> the network connection from a client to a server is more efficient 
>> (considering the time spent to do it or the complexity of the code) 
>> and more easy to keep in a project ?
> 
> That might be nice.  However, almost without exception, the network code I
> read which does not use Twisted is buggy in the most trivial ways.  It is
> rare for it to take more than a cursory glance to notice critical bugs
> (the sort which will result in data being lost).  Of course, this doesn't
> mean that all network code written without Twisted is fatally flawed, but
> it does give me a reasonable basis to assume that it will have issues. :)
> 
> Twisted's APIs aren't just easier to use correctly than the BSD socket 
> APIs,
> they're also consistent across platforms.  Are you sure you know the BSD
> APIs well enough to write some that is correct on Linux and on Windows?
> (Let alone on OS X or FreeBSD)  Even if you are, would you rather spend 
> your
> time writing the error handling logic for each of these platforms or adding
> features to your game?
> 
> Twisted may seems to be harder than the socket module.  It probably does
> have a higher up-front cost.  However, in the long run, I think that you'll
> save yourself a lot of time using it rather than using sockets directly.
> 
> You also get the advantages which the structure Twisted attempts to impose
> on your application confers.  For example, protocol/transport separation
> means that you can unit test your protocol implementation very easily.  And
> that's assuming you even need to implement your own protocol, rather than
> using one of the protocols Twisted already includes an implementation of.
> 
> You also leave open the possibility of easily taking advantage of some 
> other
> Twisted features which don't seem useful now but which you may benefit from
> later in development.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 

It certainly lists a goodly number of reasons why people should strongly 
consider using Twisted, and there are a goodly number one doesn't come 
across every day.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 571 484 6266   +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC              http://www.holdenweb.com/





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