realtime design

[Peter Hansen]

Will Stuyvesant wrote:
> <OP>
> We would like to do prototyping of realtime systems.  Is
> anybody doing something like this using Python?
> </OP>
> 
> That posting has been reformulated to a programming contest:
> 
> James Besemer asked what we mean with realtime.  Realtime is
> about responsiveness, for our purposes.  What we would like to
> have is a function (or maybe a class, but a function seems
> enough for now) that would make existing Python software
> suitable for a realtime application.  The function should call
> a function in the existing software.  The function should
> return within a specified time limit.  That would mean a
> function call could only take a maximum amount of time, after
> that it is ignored or killed or whatever and a default value
> is used.  

That sounds like a pretty bizarre thing to do, considering
how most systems described as "realtime" are actually
designed (that is to say, they are unlike the above approach).

Could you tell us what you are really trying to accomplish?

-Peter