Python reliability

[John Waycott]

Ville Voipio wrote:
> In article <A_CdnfnrU4zBT9feRVn-jw at telcove.net>, Thomas Bartkus wrote:
> 
>>All in all, it would seem that the reliability of the Python run time is the
>>least of your worries.  

I agree - design of the application, keeping it simple and testing it 
thoroughly is more important for reliability than implementation 
language. Indeed, I'd argue that in many cases you'd have better 
reliability using Python over C because of easier maintainability and 
higher-level data constructs.

> 
> Well, let's put it this way. I have seen many computers running
> Linux with a high load of this and that (web services, etc.) with
> uptimes of years. I have not seen any recent Linux crash without
> faulty hardware or drivers.
> 
> If using Python does not add significantly to the level of 
> irreliability, then I can use it. If it adds, then I cannot
> use it.
> 

I wrote a simple Python program that acts as a buffer between a 
transaction network and a database server, writing the transaction logs 
to a file that the database reads the next day for billing. The simple 
design decoupled the database from network so it wasn't stresed during 
high-volume times. The two systems (one for redundancy) that run the 
Python program have been running for six years.

-- John Waycott