[Twisted-Python] Components

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 06:53 PM 2/27/04 -0500, Stephen Waterbury wrote:
>Itamar Shtull-Trauring wrote:
>>On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 09:26, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
>>
>>>What is Twisted as a whole really for?  ;)
>>
>>Networking applications. That is, programs that involve communicating
>>with other programs over a network, typically TCP/IP. Whereas
>>"enterprise" is to me anyway a meaningless word in this context. What is
>>the definition of an "enterprise application"?
>
>I submit that the term "enterprise" has been over-buzzed to
>the point of near-meaninglessness, so it's pretty useless
>except in marketing literature, where meaninglessness is
>a useful quality.  :)
>
>That said, to me an "enterprise application" is any application
>that is specifically designed to interoperate with, and/or
>enable interoperability of, other software that is used in the
>processes of a "business" (in the most general sense).
>
>I think that's about as specific as you can get.  Like I say,
>*almost* meaningless, in that it could apply to almost anything,
>given enough "spin".  ;)

I'm actually using it a bit more specifically than that; I'm specifically 
targeting applications that have a "shared resource domain" (and whose data 
integrity or availability has fiduciary consequences), or tools needed to 
develop, maintain or support such applications.  IOW, a desktop email 
client (for example) wouldn't count, but a group issue tracker for emailed 
requests would.

By "fiduciary consequences", I mean that if it's not running when it's 
supposed to be, or data integrity isn't maintained, it results in financial 
losses.  By "shared resource domain", I effectively mean a multi-user 
application, or shared processing resources like a mail server.  I think 
you'll find that these two concepts (shared resources and fiduciary 
responsibility) are the common themes underlying what most people mean when 
they talk about "enterprise" applications.  Or at least, I think people who 
*buy* enterprise applications would stress these as defining 
characteristics, whether the people who *sell* such applications really 
fulfill them or not.  :)