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Stackless/microthreads merge news

Will Ware wware at world.std.com
Mon Mar 13 08:51:56 EST 2000 
Konrad Hinsen (hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr) wrote:
> Do I understand correctly that microthreads are handled completely in
> the Python interpreter, with no OS support at all? In that case,
> there is no way to profit from multiple processors, or even to let
> other threads continue when one is waiting for I/O etc.

The kind of thing you're looking for would involve interrupting the
physical processor rather than the Python VM. Unfortunately, all your
conjectures about the unsuitability of microthreads for your application
are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. If you had a big thoroughly
optimized Fortran routine, you're right, you'd need to insert task
switch calls, which wouldn't be any fun. Sorry the manual didn't make
this clearer.

I had intended microthreads to be useful for behavioral simulators
where performance wasn't terribly critical. It's my understanding that
Python's support for OS threads is quite good, but you probably already
know a lot more about that than I do.
-- 
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Resistance is futile. Capacitance is efficacious.
Will Ware	email:    wware @ world.std.com
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