On Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:09:01 pm Adam Olsen wrote:
On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 18:22, Sturla Molden <sturla@molden.no> wrote:
Adam Olsen skrev:
This'd show you the minimum amount of overhead, but only for a trivial case: single threaded.
As far as I know, the single-threaded case is the reason for keeping the GIL.
No, single-threaded is the reason for keeping the GIL *as an option*. The complete lack of any other viable option (in CPython) is the reason it's the only option.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say there, but I'd like link to what Guido said over two years ago: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=214235 [quote] ... I'd welcome a set of patches into Py3k only if the performance for a single-threaded program (and for a multi-threaded but I/O-bound program) does not decrease. I would also be happy if someone volunteered to maintain a GIL-free fork of Python... However, I want to warn that there are many downsides to removing the GIL. ... I want to point out one more time that the language doesn't require the GIL -- it's only the CPython virtual machine that has historically been unable to shed it. [end quote] -- Steven D'Aprano