Home Original page

[Python-Dev] GIL, Python 3, and MP vs. UP

Simon Percivall s.percivall at chello.se
Wed Sep 21 18:26:11 CEST 2005 
On 21 sep 2005, at 12.33, Donovan Baarda wrote:
> In the short term there will be various hacks to try and make the
> existing plethora of threading applications run better on multiple
> processors, but ultimately the overheads of shared memory will force
> serious multi-processing to use IPC channels. If you want serious MP,
> use processes, not threads.

The problem here is that while Python offers some support for
thread-based multiprogramming in its standard library: theaad,  
threading,
Queue, etc., there doesn't seem to exist much support for process-based
multiprogramming beyond the basics. How is the developer helped? with
data sharing, communication, control over running processes, dealing out
tasks to be handled, etc.

The best way to make people stop complaining about the GIL and start  
using
process-based multiprogramming is to provide solid, standardized support
for process-based multiprogramming.

//Simon
More information about the Python-Dev mailing list