[IPython-dev] Detecting GUI mainloop running in IPython

[Fernando Perez]

Hi Eric,

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Eric Firing <efiring at hawaii.edu> wrote:
>
>
> I suspect this will require major changes in mpl's gui event code.
> What is your time scale for switching to the two-process version?  Is
> there a document outlining how it will work?  Or a prototype?
>

it's worth noting that we'll continue to ship a single-process version
of IPython, much like today's, because that works with nothing but the
stdlib.  There are many places that use IPython and rely on being able
to install it without any dependencies, so we want to keep that
constituency happy.

The two-process design, of which these in-progress branches already
have prototypes (one running in a terminal, two in Qt):

http://github.com/omazapa/ipython
http://github.com/epatters/ipython
http://github.com/muzgash/ipython

will allow the user session to continue operating even if the user's
code (or some other library) segfaults the python interpreter; it will
also give us reconnect/disconnect abilities, simultaneous
collaboration on a single kernel, frontends with different feature
sets, etc.  But since the kernels won't be listening for input on
stdin, the InputHook tricks won't quite work, so we'll need to find a
solution for that...

Cheers,

f