[IPython-dev] connecting ipythonqt to an existing kernel should not require specifying 4 ports

[Fernando Perez]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 3:58 PM, MinRK <benjaminrk at gmail.com> wrote:
> In order to connect a second ipythonqt frontend to an existing kernel, I
> must specify by hand all 4 ports at the command-line.  This really shouldn't
> be the case, especially since the default behavior is to have the ports
> ordered sequentially.
> I think it should at least be able to try using consecutive ports when a
> single port is given, or use a two-stage connection model that doesn't
> require clients to ever know more than one port, as is done in the parallel
> code.
> Having to type 'ipythonqt -e --xreq 65273 --sub 65274 --rep 65275 --hb
> 65276', as I just had to, just doesn't make sense.

I agree that's annoying.  Perhaps as a start we could change the model
to 'find a random port and then use the next 3 above that'...  Then
you'd only need to specify the starting port.

The two-stage model is indeed the cleanest approach.  Right now we
have some nasty business with zmq on win32 (surprise, surprise) so I
doubt we'll be able to look at it.

But once we start integrating with your code, we could uniformize the
connection model to use your approach.

Cheers,

f