Finding Answers to Your Questions

Even with this book, and the Twisted documentation, you'll eventually run into a question whose answer you can't figure out on your own. When that happens, it's time to get help from the Twisted community.

Figure 1-1. Using pydoc to view API documentation

 

1.5.1. How Do I Do That?

There are a few excellent community resources you can look to for help. First, there are the mailing lists . The twisted-python list is for general discussion of Twisted. The twisted-web list is dedicated to discussion of web applications. It's good etiquette to use the proper list; if you ask web-related questions on the twisted-python list, you'll probably be asked to move the discussion to twisted-web. You can sign up for the twisted-python and twisted-web mailing lists at http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python and http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-web.

Second, you can talk with Twisted users and developers in the #twisted and #twisted.web IRC channels on the freenode network (see http://freenode.net for a list of servers). These channels feature lively, and often funny, discussion, and give you the unique opportunity to ask questions directly to members of the Twisted development team. Keep in mind, though, that such real-time support is a privilege, not a right. Be polite, and understand that developers might not always have time to answer your questions right at that moment. If you don't get an immediate answer on IRC, try sending a message to the appropriate mailing list. This approach will give the question to a wider audience, and let people answer when they have more time.

A final resource available to the Twisted community is Planet Twisted . Located at http://planet.twistedmatrix.com, this web site aggregates weblog posts made by members of the Twisted development team. It's an excellent way to keep track of what's going on with Twisted development, as well as to get to know the personalities of the Twisted team. Planet Twisted also provides an RSS feed at http://planet.twistedmatrix.com/rss.xml.