Shared Memory Space - Accross Apps & Network

[Tim Golden]

Robert Rawlins - Think Blue wrote:
> I've got an application that runs on an embedded system, the application
> uses a whole bunch or dicts and other data types to store state and other
> important information.

> I'm looking to build a small network of these embedded systems, and I'd love
> to have them all share the same set or data. Is it possible to share the
> applications variables across multiple applications, so certain lists are
> like a 'pool' written to by the different systems? I'm sure I could cobble
> something together by writing the lists to shared files instead of keeping
> them in RAM, but that feels a little inefficient. I'd like to try and
> configure some form of master/slave relationship between my applications if
> possible.

I was really surprised you hadn't received a whole
slew of answers for this (even if they were: search
the newsgroup for the last time this was asked!) But
then I noticed that the post hadn't appeared on Google
Groups, at least. I read things via the mailing list;
is it possible your post hasn't made it across to
Usenet either?

Just to get the ball rolling, I'd suggest two things:

Pyro - http://pyro.sf.net

This is actively maintained and has been going for a while.
We use it here (on a fairly small scale) and I know that
others use it elsewhere for bigger things. It's based on
a threaded socket server so whenever someone starts to say:
"I know; I'll roll my own threaded socket server", I'm
inclined to say: "Don't reinvent the wheel; try Pyro".


PyLinda - http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~aw/pylinda/

This implements the tuplespace paradigm. It's great
fun to use, but as far as I know this implementation
was a PhD project and lacks the robustness and wide
use of other things. That said, it works perfectly
well within its remit and might be a good match for
what you're trying to do.


No doubt other people can chime in with suggestions

TJG