Steve, This is an aside: I'd love to see someone implement in Python a framework similar to the Quantum Leaps Quantum Framework for event-driven programming. I think Python has some features that lend themselves to a neater implementation than what can be done in C/C++.
More generally, I'd like to see an event driven framework which would be more declarative than the Quantum Framework. Rather than write code for most transitions it should be possible to declare in data what various events cause as transitions from states to states. Then optionally hang pointers to code for things to do before transitioning. Even let the code return a flag to test for whether to transition. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list