[Zope] Message exchange between distributed python code

Alexander Limi alexander@limi.net
Tue, 17 Oct 2000 17:20:27 +0200 (CEST)


Gents,

I am currently writing some software in python that is spread over several
different computers. These small programs should be able to communicate
with each other and send messages that contain instructions between
themselves.

I am wrapping this up in Zope for the time being (therefore the post to
this list :), but in essence this is not directly Zope related as much as
a Python decision.

One of my prerequisites is that the messaging should be as portable as
possible. The message format will likely end up being XML-based, but what
I want to know is what kind of message exchange methods are there that are
portable and easy to move to another programming language if need be?

You see, I am prototyping this thing in python, but some parts may be
rewritten in C later on. All POSIX features will be available, so maybe I
can use some of that?

The suggestions I've gotten so far is:
-SMTP
 (use SMTP to transfer a mail to the other machine containing the
  message, handle the mail with procmail and write it to a file that the
  other program can read)
-XML-RPC
 (is this lightweight enough? and is it easy to handle, and does it take
  care of the transport of the message too? What about C clients/servers?)

I think what I want is maybe something like Java's RMI, but it should work
with both Python and C. Being able to send messages between programs
without too much hassle or overhead while still remaining portable is my
goal.

Any advice appreciated. And please CC me, as I'm not on the list at the
moment.

-- 
Alexander Limi
alexander@limi.net