Inter-process communication

[Paul Boddie]

Phil Hunt wrote:
> 
> Say I have two separate Python programs (i.e. two separate Unix processes
> running the Python interpteter with a *.py file), and I want them to
> talk to each other, how do I do it?

[...]

I can recommend Fnorb (http://www.dstc.edu.au/Fnorb) for this purpose, given
that I managed to do similar things involving a continually running process
(providing system information) and a client process which made requests
periodically. Although the client was actually a Zope server, and thus wasn't
being started up every time some action was to take place (which is what you
seem to want to do in one of your applications), I don't think that there is a
huge amount of overhead involved in using Fnorb in programs which get started up
every now and again.

The principal benefit of using Fnorb is the abstraction that CORBA provides.
With a little experience of the interface description language it is possible to
make fairly rapid progress in defining workable interfaces between your
components, with the nasty low-level networking all nicely hidden away. With
technologies like these I can barely see why people bother to cook up their own
sockets 'n' streams solutions these days.

The other benefit of using Fnorb is that it provides you with interoperability,
so you could get some freedom in the languages you might choose to use later on,
should you decide to rewrite certain components for increased performance and so
on.

Paul