[Twisted-Python] Slow PB imports

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

On Nov 2, 2011, at 9:10 AM, Itamar Turner-Trauring wrote:

> On Wed, 2011-11-02 at 13:01 +0000, exarkun at twistedmatrix.com wrote:
> 
>> This isn't a great idea, since Twisted doesn't support being installed 
>> as a zipfile (which is what I guess you meant, since a .egg directory 
>> wouldn't be any different from the standard installation in terms of 
>> import performance).
> 
> Oh right, plugins don't work or something?

Actually, you can pre-generate a dropin.cache for your zip file, and the plugin system will work fine out of a zip file, since about 5 years ago: <http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/changeset/19305>.

Basically, portions of Twisted can work just fine out of a zip file, and it might be adequate for many applications.  But (A) we don't have a buildbot anywhere that tests things in a zipfile configuration, and (B) there are many, many modules within Twisted, especially within tests, which expect that they can look at __file__ and assume it's a path on the filesystem.  So big chunks of it definitely won't work.

I'd love to fix this, but it is just _super_ low priority for me right now; I kinda hope that someone else will show up with another embedded system running Twisted and do some work in this area, since the last time I genuinely cared about zip files was when I was putting Twisted on a tiny flash card to install in buses :).

-glyph