[Twisted-Python] Twisted as a House for Sale

[Matt Haggard]

Please indulge me -- my reasons are at the end.

Twisted as a House for Sale
===

You double check the listing printout to make sure you're not lost.
On the drive in, you didn't see many other cars on the road or people
out on the street -- the neighborhood seems kind of deserted.

"Nope, it's the right place," you say as you turn the key toward you.
The engine stops, and the resulting silence is immediate.  Ronnie, the
agent who's going to show you the place, said he'll meet you inside.

You first notice the yard.  The grass is a little yellowed, except
where it grows abundantly at the base of the waist-high, once-white
picket fence.  There are a bunch of signs on the fence and in the
yard.  Many of the signs have, "Attn Construction Workers" written in
big red letters at the top.  You walk toward one to see what it says,
and then... in the middle of the front yard, you notice a freestanding
door.  It looks new.  Fresh paint.  Shiny knob and knocker.  Standing
at an angle, right in the middle of the lawn.

"Weird."

Forgetting the signs for a minute you walk to the fence, open the gate
and make your way up the walkway toward the freestanding door.
Standing in front of the door you read, etched into the knocker,
"web2."

"Weird," you say again.  It almost feels like a tombstone.

You turn back toward the house.  There are lots of windows (way more
than at that other house on Amigofeed Drive).  And you notice for the
first time that there are three front doors.

"Umm...", you're beginning to doubt that this is really the house you want.

You step onto the porch and examine the doors.  From left to right,
they are labeled "reactor.listen," "TCP4ServerEndpoint" and
"serverFromString."  You reach for TCP4ServerEndpoint, but second
guess yourself and instead open the "reactor.listen" door.  You're
standing in a small entryway.  There's ample light coming from a
fluorescent fixture, though the light seems a bit sterile.  Kind of
like an old hospital.

"Oh man," you smile.  You just noticed the not-quite-lime-green shag
carpet.  Pretty sweet.

It still feels eriely quiet.  From how Ronnie described this place
over the phone, you were expecting a little more.  This dismal room
just seems so stagnant.  You glance at your watch, wondering when
Ronnie's gonna show.

"I guess I can poke around a little while I wait."

You build up a nice static charge shuffling toward the door at the
other side of the entry way.  Zap!  You get a short blue arc as you
grab the doorknob and turn.  You glance up and notice a small label on
the door as you push it open.  The label says "reactor.run()."

A huge wave of sound washes over you, startling you!  There are people
everywhere.  Some are running around, some are sitting and talking,
some are arguing loudly.  There's people on phones and on computers.
It's a madhouse of activity!  This room is huge!  It's cavernous.  It
feels like Grand Central.  The ceiling must be upwards of 30 feet
high!  The room is full of sunlight, streaming in through multiple
skylights and through the wall opposite you (perhaps 60 feet away)
which is made entirely of glass.  The glass wall looks out to a
beautiful garden, full of trees and flowers.

"Hi, I'm Ronnie!"

You swing around, surprised.

"This place is amazing!" you exclaim.

"Sure is.  Let me show you around!"

"But why is the front..." you start.

"This room is the event loop," he cuts you off.  "Everything goes
through here.  Well, not everything.  Deferreds don't, and some of the
other utilities" he continues, grabbing your arm and pulling you
through the room.

"De--whats?" you stammer.

He stops walking and turns toward you.  "Deferreds.  You know, like:
'I'm going to hit you'."  He pauses.

"You're going to wh... OWW!"  He slaps you hard across the face.

"Deferreds."  He grabs your hand and starts walking briskly through
the room again.  You rub your cheek wondering what just happened.

"Trap it next time.  Let me show you the library!"

"This place has a library?  Cool.  I hope it has one of those sliding
ladders," you think to yourself, still nursing your red cheek.

---

Ronnie takes you through a door at the side of the room.  It smells
like a library, but it seems awfully small.  For the asking price,
though, you can't complain.

"What do you want to know about?" he asks.

"Pardon?"

"What do you want to learn?  Fencing, cooking, horitculture, aviation,
rare-earth metal mining?  What do you want to know?" he asks again,
looking right at you and waiting.

"Uhh... cooking?"

"Alright, this way."  He grabs your arm and yanks you through a door
you hadn't realized was there.  You find yourself in a room no bigger
than a closet, smashed right up against Ronnie.

"Here you go."  He shoves a paper into your hands.

"Ye Olde Guide of Squirrels Cooking" reads the title.

"How old is thi..." you begin to ask.

Ronnie grabs the paper back, examining it with furrowed brow.

"Bah!"  He exclaims, "those kids keep messing with

Re: [Twisted-Python] Twisted as a House for Sale

[Laurelin of Middle Earth]

I thought the story was incredible, and a really really excellent
analogy to the feeling I have whenever I try to learn something
about twisted.  Especially the first time.

-- lauri

Thus spaketh Matt Haggard on 2013-08-19 12:38 PM:


Please indulge me -- my reasons are at the end.

Twisted as a House for Sale
===

> [snip]

___
Twisted-Python mailing list
Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com
http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python

Re: [Twisted-Python] Twisted as a House for Sale

[Justin Venus]

I really enjoyed the story and it brought back early memories of learning
about twisted.

@jvenus


On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Laurelin of Middle Earth
wrote:

> I thought the story was incredible, and a really really excellent
> analogy to the feeling I have whenever I try to learn something
> about twisted.  Especially the first time.
>
> -- lauri
>
> Thus spaketh Matt Haggard on 2013-08-19 12:38 PM:
>
>
>  Please indulge me -- my reasons are at the end.
>>
>> Twisted as a House for Sale
>> ===
>>
> > [snip]
>
>
> __**_
> Twisted-Python mailing list
> Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.**com 
> http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-**bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-**python
>



-- 
Justin Venus
justin.ve...@gmail.com
___
Twisted-Python mailing list
Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com
http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python

Re: [Twisted-Python] Twisted as a House for Sale

[Glyph]

On Aug 19, 2013, at 10:38 AM, Matt Haggard  wrote:

> ... [a story] ...

Very entertaining :-).

My one disappointment with the narrative was that when you were lushly 
describing standing in an open field west of the white house, you neglected to 
mention that there was a mailbox there.

> I want to mow the lawn, so to speak.  I want to plant flowers and make
> the One Front Door more prominent.  I'm considering making a site
> dedicated to people learning Twisted.  It would be cool if it there
> were things showcasing running Twisted services (websockets + ssh +
> irc or something).
> 
> Is there interest in this?

Of course.

I'd be happy to see what you come up with in terms of a site specifically for 
beginners.  I think you might need to do more than one; after all, "do you want 
to make an IRC bot or a name server or an all-singing all-dancing website with 
IMAP and XMPP on the side?" is a tough counter-question to ask of someone who 
just asks "what is Twisted?".

But let's not neglect the existing site!  I can see a lot of value of having 
some alternate entry-points, but there are probably things that you'd like 
those entry-points to link to on the Twisted site proper, which may not exist.  
If you'd like make them exist by doing some web site maintenance ("wiki 
gardening"), I'd be happy to give you the relevant credentials on 
https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/.  Patches to documentation are always welcome 
too, although (as always) we need help to get the review queue back to a 
manageable size so they can be landed in a timely manner.  Even little changes 
(like this update that I made to the Trial page a few years ago) can help a lot.

I'm pretty sure we can scare up some hosting resources for things if you want 
to have some kind of demo persistent Twisted services running.  
twistedmatrix.com is no longer buckling under the pressure of its users - why, 
I just ssh'd in, and the load is less than 1.0!  By our historical standards 
that's practically idle! ;-)  And we have some other machines that we have not 
had the system administration bandwidth to make effective use of.

It's also worthwhile to periodically really review the state of things, so you 
don't fix problems that are already fixed, or at least you build on solutions 
that are already in progress.  Sometimes us old-timers who remember when the 
docs were _really_ bad and there were _big_ gaps (the mention of the "index" 
makes me think you are remembering when 
 was just a blank directory 
listing) don't always appreciate how much things have improved in the 
intervening years.

Not to say that the state of the documentation and particularly the "new user 
experience" doesn't still have a long, long way to go :-).

-glyph___
Twisted-Python mailing list
Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com
http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python

Re: [Twisted-Python] Twisted as a House for Sale

[Laurens Van Houtven]

Hi Matt,


Loved the story, excited about the prospects. Just one nitpick: after one
of Glyph's rants on gender-neutral words, I got tripped up by Ronnie not
being referred to as "they" ;-)

cheers
lvh
___
Twisted-Python mailing list
Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com
http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python