[Twisted-web] Introduction, newbie confusion plus an offer

[Matt Goodall]

Kieran Holland wrote:

>Partly in an effort to clear up my own confusion, I have just been
>putting together some documentation on Stan, Nevow's document object
>model.  This is my first draft and I am fairly new to Nevow so don't
>take it as gospel:
>
>http://dictator.kieranholland.com/prose/Meet%20Stan.html
>
>I would greatly value feedback from more experienced Nevow users.
>  
>
Wow, that's great! Thankyou.

The writing style is great - it's very easy to read. There's a
surprising amount of detail in there but it doesn't feel that way.

I have a couple of specific comments ...

"Wherever this is the case, the Stan attribute name should be prefixed
or postfixed with an underscore."

It's probably best to forget about the prefixed version, it's something
we're trying to discourage anyway.

"Pretty-printing flattened Stan"

It's worth mentioning that introducing arbitrary whitespace into XHTML
content can affect how the browser renders the page so it should always
be double-checked for correctness.

"Built in renderers of the Page class"

The description of render_string should mention that it is really a
debugging aid (perhaps it should be renamed?) and should never to be
used to render real, human strings. render_string will break badly as
soon as it meets a unicode character that cannot be encoded to ascii.

render_sequence should mention that the "item" pattern is required.

Once again, thanks for writing this.

Cheers, Matt

>Kieran
>
>On 07/07/05, Ed Suominen <general at eepatents.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Lloyd, as a fairly experienced Nevow user who has gone through the same
>>frustrations, I'll gladly help to the extent what you're writing about
>>applies to Nevow. I understand that Twisted.web2 is more like Nevow than
>>Twisted.web, so that may make sense. (Actually, you may want to use
>>Nevow -- check it out at http://nevow.org/.)
>>
>>Contact me directly if interested. Also, don't forget the #twisted.web
>>channel on the Freenode IRC server, which is an excellent real-time
>>resource that has helped me a great deal with questions.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Ed Suominen
>>
>>On Wed, 2005-07-06 at 14:33 -0400, lloyd at paisite.com wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Hello,
>>>
>>>I'm Lloyd, I'm baffled, and I'd like to offer my modest talents to help
>>>others like me come up to speed with Twisted.web in record time.
>>>
>>>I've been looking for a way to bring a large ColdFusion application over
>>>to Python. Twisted.web looks to offer all that I could wish for and more.
>>>The work to date is awe-inspiring. But... the documentation,
>>>well-intentioned as it is, and much more ample than in many Open Source
>>>projects, truly baffles me.
>>>
>>>I'm first to admit my limitations: I'm still in the early learning stages
>>>of Python; I understand OO conceptually, but have little experience
>>>writing or reading OO code; and, approaching the golden years, undoubtably
>>>have far fewer functioning neurons than most of the subscribers to this
>>>list, much less the brilliant young turks who have created the Twisted
>>>framework.
>>>
>>>But, browsing through the archives, it's clear that I am not alone in my
>>>confusion.
>>>
>>>So, I'd like to make a proposal:
>>>
>>>I have many years of writing and editing experience. Back in the days when
>>>personal computers were still connected to audio cassette recorders, and I
>>>was as excited but unenlightened about PCs as I am now about Twisted, I
>>>contributed three well-received articles to Personal Computing magazine
>>>under the name Techo Turkey. These helped readers hook up IBM Selectric
>>>Terminals to their new PCs, create a computer-controlled haunted house for
>>>Halloween, and set up a computer-controlled home security system.
>>>
>>>I would like now to offer to write some supplementary documentation for
>>>Twisted.web aimed at turkeys like me -- the really really basic stuff plus
>>>sure-to-work examples that can bring even Mickey-the-Dunce to sufficient
>>>level of understanding that he can participate creatively in the Twisted
>>>community.
>>>
>>>The catch: I need knowledgeable folks willing to answer my many many
>>>stupid questions like, once you've installed Twisted from, say, Debian,
>>>where should what files go and how should permissions be defined?
>>>Undoubtably these generous mentors would also need to critique my newbie
>>>code and perhaps, even, submit examples of their own. Who know, maybe we
>>>could even get a book out of it.
>>>
>>>Any takers?
>>>
>>>Best wishes,
>>>
>>>Lloyd
>>>      
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Twisted-web mailing list
>>Twisted-web at twistedmatrix.com
>>http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-web
>>
>>    
>>
>
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>  
>


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