Interactively Testing Remote Servers Using the Python Programming Language

Guido van Rossum
Dept. CST, CWI, P.O. Box 94079
1090 GB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
E-mail: guido@cwi.nl Jelke de Boer
HIO Enschede; P.O.Box 1326
7500 BH Enschede, The Netherlands

This paper describes how two tools that were developed quite independently gained in power by a well-designed connection between them. The tools are Python, an interpreted prototyping language, and AIL, a Remote Procedure Call stub generator. The context is Amoeba, a well-known distributed operating system developed jointly by the Free University and CWI in Amsterdam. As a consequence of their integration, both tools have profited: Python gained usability when used with Amoeba — for which it was not specifically developed — and AIL users now have a powerful interactive tool to test servers and to experiment with new client/server interfaces.