Optional explicit syntax for remote operations

[Jonathan Lange]

It would be nice if there were some sort of (optional) explicit syntax for remote operations.

For example, rather than saying:
  branch.createMergeProposal(commit_message="foo", ...)

Being able to say:
  branch.callRemote('createMergeProposal', commit_message="foo", ...)

The main advantages would be:
  - making it easy to scan for network ops
  - familiarity to Twisted programmers

I don't think this is a very important bug.

[Gary Poster (gary)]

"making it easy to scan for network ops": you mean, in the codebase? That would be a coding convention which would be easily forgotten and ignored on one hand, and on the other hand could be replaced with other coding conventions that didn't require alternat APIs (e.g., remote_branch.createMergeProposal...).

"familiarity to Twisted programmers": if it doesn't return a Deferred, this seems of very minimal gain. I'd personally prefer an approach that had an alternate root object that kept the same API but returned Deferreds.

- A given root object only supports one approach, so it is less accident-prone.
- Programmers can learn a single API, and either use standard blocking calls or Deferreds.

Of course, that may be a pipe dream, for one reason or another. Or perhaps that's what James is experimenting with?

I'm very inclined to call this a Won't Fix, but will call it a Triaged: Low for now in case you convince me otherwise.