On Sun, 25 Oct 2009, Ben Boeckel wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA256 > > Mike McGrath wrote: > > > On Sun, 25 Oct 2009, Ben Boeckel wrote: > > > >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >> Hash: SHA256 > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> I am working on a project designed to mirror large, changing archives of > >> software in a manner that ensures data integrity and atomic updates using a > >> peer-to-peer protocol. > >> > >> My team and I would like to design this software such that it provides a > >> suitable replacement for rsync. As Fedora is among the leading > >> distributions, I would like to solicit your opinions on the implementation. > >> We have designed much of the architecture, but have not implemented anything > >> yet. One issue we wish to address currently is that of interpreted vs. > >> compiled languages. > >> > >> My team and I would like to know whether the community would be accepting of > >> such a project (which includes a daemon) if it were written in Python rather > >> than C or C++. If so, it would greatly simplify the implementation and > >> allow it to be more robust. Python's built-in libraries and facilities > >> provide much of the path and network manipulation that the daemon requires. > >> Using the Python standard libraries allows us to rely upon a well-tested > >> base and focus on higher-level issues. > >> > >> What are your opinions, as system administrators, on using Python for > >> long-running daemon processes when the developers are explicitly mindful of > >> memory considerations? > >> > > > > I've generally had better luck with C/C++ based daemons from a systems > > admin point of view. But we've used plenty of python based daemons that > > worked just fine. I think the problem is the lower barrier to using > > python means it's easier for less experienced developers to create python > > daemons. > > > > Really though, if it's done right, python daemons can be just as good as C > > daemons. And extending Python is very easy as you mentioned with using > > pythons built in libraries. If you're concerned about performance though > > it shouldn't take much to do the basics of what you want and compare C to > > python. Sometimes they're identical, sometimes C wins but I don't think > > I've seen python win yet (with performance). But it is much easier to > > work with python :) > > > > -Mike > > Thanks for your reply. > > Seeing as it is a mirroring daemon, the network is the bottleneck. If it isn't > then either you're sitting next door, our implementation is bad, or the > hardware shouldn't be a mirror in the first place. > With all my babbling I forgot to mention we do already run python daemons in Fedora Infrastructure. Func is one, TurboGears (though it's wrapped in mod_wsgi) and one that we wrote ourselves[1] is our mirrorlist server. It's the backend that powers: http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=fedora-11&arch=i386 -Mike [1] By 'ourselves' I mean Matt Domsch who, quite honestly, has designed the most robust, fault tolerant dynamic content system we run. _______________________________________________ Fedora-infrastructure-list mailing list Fedora-infrastructure-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-infrastructure-list
