[python-win32] A shameless COM question

[Tim Roberts]

Marcus Low wrote:
>
> Thank you for the alternative view, yes i have the twisted downloaded 
> and inspecting it prior to this question.
> My only concern would be this is because the said COM  component is 
> made to run optimally in Windows and i am not sure i have the same 
> assurance when it comes to Twisted.  I needed the events because i 
> need to inspect and log in nearly every level of the smtp transaction 
> so just creating a simple smtp was not the goal, the goal is to create 
> a full fledge mail server with crazy control and logging.

The COM component is "made to run in Windows".  I doubt that anyone ever 
said it was "made to run optimally in Windows".


> I am not familiar with how Twisted is implemented in Windows, if it 
> uses the specific windows apis and asynch model winsock2 directly for 
> optimal performance.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Twisted library is significantly 
more mature than your COM component, which I had never heard of before 
yesterday, and has had a significantly larger investment in development 
and optimization time.  Twisted is the basis for quite a large number of 
production net servers, including a number of full-blown web servers, 
which have much higher performance demands than a simple SMTP server.

Plus, since it is cross-platform, you could move your server to Linux in 
the future, should that become interesting.  Your COM server won't do that.


> So do you still think i should stick with twisted? I am all open for 
> suggestions.

If you really are open to ALL suggestions, then I let me step out on a 
limb to suggest that reimplementing a full SMTP server from scratch in 
Python is a nutty idea to begin with.  Mail serving is a non-trivial 
activity, filled with pitfalls, configuration strangeness, security 
issues, scalability problems, network availability issues, and spam and 
virus sensitivity.  It would be much better for you to grab one of the 
excellent and well-proven open source SMTP servers and make whatever 
modifications you need to make for your environment.

-- 
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.