[IPython-dev] New ipythonqt console questions/feedback

Fernando Perez fperez.net at gmail.com
Thu Oct 7 21:26:59 EDT 2010


On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 6:20 PM, Brian Granger <ellisonbg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The only difficulty is that the kernel has to know when it is started
> if is can outlive its frontend.  This is the logic that makes sure we
> don't get zombie kernel floating around - we don't want to turn that
> logic off under normal curcumstances.  We will have to think carefully
> about this.
>

We could allow the user to disable the auto-destruct behavior on
startup.  Basically advanced users who know they'll have to clean up
their kernels manually could disable this logic on startup. Then at
least they'd have the choice of disconnecting the frontend later on if
they so desire.

That wouldn't be much of an issue for kernels started manually at a
terminal, since you can always kill the kernel right there.  The
automatic logic is really important once clients are started from a
gui/menu, where there's no easy/obvious way to find a zombie kernel
short of low-level process identification.

But I think that making that logic optional with a startup flag is a
reasonable compromise: only advanced users will knowingly disable it,
and it won't cause zombie kernels under normal use.

Cheers,

f



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