[Python-Dev] Re: Moving towards Python 3.0 (was Re: Speed up

[Cameron Laird]

functioncalls)
Reply-To: claird-dated-1109937599.27a97c at phaseit.net

A month ago, Nathan Binkert wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be nicer to have a facility that let you send messages
> > between processes and manage concurrency properly instead?  You'll
> > need
> > most of this anyway to do multithreading sanely, and the benefit to
> > the
> > multiple process model is that you can scale to multiple machines, not
> > just processors.  For brokering data between processes on the same
> > machine, you can use mapped memory if you can't afford to copy it
> > around, which gives you basically all the benefits of threads with
> > fewer pitfalls.
> 
> I don't think this is an answered problem.  There are plenty of
> researchers on both sides of this fence.  It is not been proven at all
> that threads are a bad model.
> 
> http://capriccio.cs.berkeley.edu/pubs/threads-hotos-2003.pdf or even
> http://www.python.org/~jeremy/weblog/030912.html
> 
I want to add:  me, too.  That is, while all my instincts incline
toward message-passing and "bulkier" concurrency which emphasizes
clusters more than multiprocessors, what's most certain to me is
that we--computing people, academics, all of us together--really
don't know yet what the right answers are.

*My* personal desire:  Python as a healthy industrial-strength
language strong enough to support such radical experiments as
Stackless, PyPy, a sophisticated multithreader, and so on.  It has
been; I expect it will be.


Cameron Laird                    http://www.phaseit.net
Phaseit, Inc.                    
claird at phaseit.net               +1 281 996 8546 FAX