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basic python threading question

David Bolen db3l at fitlinxx.com
Fri Sep 29 18:49:24 EDT 2000 
Donn Cave <donn at u.washington.edu> writes:

> Threading is best avoided, period.  I mean, if you can do
> approximately the same thing without threads, then you would have to
> be insane to use threads. (...) The use of threads adds a dimension
> to the complexity of the program, that's all.  (...)

I think that's too general a statement, dependent on task.  A
multi-threaded implementation can often be clearer than alternative
implementations - particularly when they are independent activities
with little data overlap with other threads - because the operation
itself stands alone and isn't cluttered with any baggage to manage
multiple activities.  Like anything else it can be mis-applied, but
it's a valuable design method for some applications.

And in most cases handling the same task that a threaded
implementation achieves via another mechanism is going to have it's
own trade-off in terms of complexity dimension.  It would be the same
sort of complexity as the threaded design, but it will have it's own
complexity nonetheless.

--
-- David
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