[Twisted-Python] Tubes!

[Thomas Hervé]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 10:37 PM, Glyph Lefkowitz
<glyph at twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
> While I currently believe that Tubes's API has firmed up and its current API
> is suitable for general purpose use, I have believed that at various points
> in the past as well when it was completely wrong.  This sentiment is very
> much of the "this time for sure!" variety, and I will not have confidence
> that it's actually complete until we have made it all the way through the
> documentation, examples, and testing of a full proof of concept - at which
> point I believe it would be suitable to include in a Twisted release anyway.

I think this is a wrong approach. When people say "You never get it
right the first time", I don't think they mean the first time they
write it, but rather the first time somebody else uses it. You'll
never be able to release something perfect.

> So I am keenly interested in ways to address this problem rather than to
> work around it.  If we are going to try to develop new big Twisted features
> outside of Twisted,  maybe that's a good idea, but then we need a modified
> code-review policy for accepting those projects back in where they going to
> be subjected to code-review standards during development rather than in one
> giant burst at the end.

Now you're talking about the real issue. It's almost impossible to
write anything non-trivial in Twisted nowadays. One part is the
compatibility policy, with the whole "Who knows who may subclass that
thing. Don't ever change an attribute!". Overall we have a development
process averses to change. That's why tubes isn't released yet: you
know that if we put it out there we won't be able to fix it. For the
same reasons we haven't been able to fix Web or Conch.

If the answer is to put more stuff outside, I think it's rather sad.
I'd hope it would be to make the development process more lightweight.

--
Thomas