View Single Post
  #3   (View Single Post)  
Old 14th August 2008
fridder fridder is offline
Port Guard
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 12
Default

He is probably biased towards threads due to the fact that forking a process in Windows is expensive. Here is part of a discussion on threads and forks on the python mailing list that is quite applicable:
Quote:
I think you're overestimating the sophistication of the average
extension developer, and the hardware to which they have access.

Nevertheless, you're right the GIL is not as bad as you would
initially think: you just have to undo the brainwashing you got from
Windows and Java proponents who seem to consider threads as the only
way to approach concurrent activities.

Just because Java was once aimed at a set-top box OS that didn't
support multiple address spaces, and just because process creation in
Windows used to be slow as a dog, doesn't mean that multiple processes
(with judicious use of IPC) aren't a much better approach to writing
apps for multi-CPU boxes than threads.

Just Say No to the combined evils of locking, deadlocks, lock
granularity, livelocks, nondeterminism and race conditions.
--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
The original

Last edited by fridder; 14th August 2008 at 12:09 AM. Reason: Forgot to paste in the name of the original poster.
Reply With Quote