Sextile¶
SEXTILE 🬦🬓 ▐▌ 🬎🬺🬱 ▐▌ 🬵🬻🬎 🬁🬊🬬🬻🬺🬝🬆🬀 🬞🬵🬻🬬🬝🬺🬱🬏 🬹🬝🬆 ▐▌ 🬊🬬🬹 ▐▌ 🬉🬄 🬵🬹🬓🬹🬹🬓🬹🬦🬓🬹🬹🬹🬦🬓🬹 🬹🬹🬓 🬎🬩🬓█🬋 🬠🬴 █ ▐▌█ █🬋 🬎🬎🬀🬎🬎🬄🬎🬉🬄 🬎 🬉🬄🬎🬎🬄🬎🬎🬄 Viewdata services in Python. 1 about
Viewdata or Videotex services, such as Prestel in Britain, were among the earliest interactive services of the information age: a terminal dialled a remote computer over a telephone line equipped with a modem, and the computer answered with pages of text. The display was simple, twenty-four rows of forty characters in seven colours with block mosaics, and the reader moved through the pages by keying page numbers on a telephone keypad, a dedicated terminal or a microcomputer. The BBC Micro and other home computers of the day ran software that could dial and display such a service.
Sextile builds such services today, in Python. It is to a Viewdata service what Flask or Starlette is to a web application: it manages the connection, the caller’s session, the page numbering and the frames of text and graphics. You write what the pages say and how the reader interacts with them. Sextile is the framework; the Viewdata services built on it are Sextile applications.
from sextile import Page, PageRequest, Sextile, notice_page
app = Sextile(name="My service")
@app.page("1", name="main", keywords=("MAIN",))
async def main(request: PageRequest) -> Page:
return notice_page(request, "Hello, 1981.")
Page 1, as a caller sees it — drawn from that code at build time, not a screenshot:
*1# 1a Hello, 1981. 0 index
The documentation is in five parts. The tutorial teaches the framework by building one service; the how-to guides answer particular questions; the reference states the surface, the glossary and the wire; the explanation says why the framework is shaped as it is; and the applications are the three services built on it, worked through. Contributing covers the gate and the two invariants.