"Scripting Language" My Arse: Using Python for Voice over IP

    A common complaint made of Python is that it is "too slow" for 
serious application development, and is only suitable for "scripting" or
"prototyping" tasks. The Shtoom application (http://shtoom.divmod.org)
is a Voice over IP (VoIP) implementation, including a software phone and
an application framework for building voice applications, implemented
in Python using the Twisted framework. This includes a brief
overview of SIP and RTP (the protocols underlying Voice over IP),
examines some of the issues relating to the implementation of Shtoom
(with a digression on issues relating to timing), and will hopefully
help demonstrate why implementing applications in Python is perfectly
feasible. There will hopefully also be time in the talk for some
demonstrations of Shtoom.

    This is a much-updated version of a talk previously presented 
at PyCon in Washington DC, March 2004. Given that I was the only 
Australian at PyCon, I can't see there being much overlap at all. <wink>

About the speaker:
    Anthony Baxter has been developing in Python for around 10 years,
has been working in the Internet and Telephony fields for around 8 
years, and has released many open source projects. He is also one 
of the Python developers, and is currently the Python release manager.

Target of talk:
    Anyone interested in Voice over IP, people considering Python for
development.

Length of talk:
    20 minutes

Shtoom is released under the LGPL