[Python-Dev] shared data (was: Some thoughts on the codecs...)

[Greg Ward]

On 16 November 1999, Guido van Rossum said:
> A completely different approach (which, incidentally, HP has lobbied
> for before; and which has been implemented by Sjoerd Mullender for one
> particular application) would be to cache a mapping from module names
> to filenames in a dbm file.  For Sjoerd's app (which imported hundreds
> of modules) this made a huge difference.

Hey, this could be a big win for Zope startup.  Dunno how much of that
20-30 sec startup overhead is due to loading modules, but I'm sure it's
a sizeable percentage.  Any Zope-heads listening?

> The problem is that it's
> hard to deal with issues like updating the cache while sharing it with
> other processes and even other users...

Probably not a concern in the case of Zope: one installation, one
process, only gets started when it's explicitly shut down and
restarted.  HmmmMMMMmmm...

        Greg