[Python-Dev] Pythonic concurrency - offtopic

[Josiah Carlson]

Sokolov Yura <falcon at intercable.ru> wrote:
> 
> Offtopic:
> 
> Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
> (C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.
> 
> G:\Working\1>c:\Python24\python
> Python 2.4.1 (#65, Mar 30 2005, 09:13:57) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on 
> win32
> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>  >>> from os import fork
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> ImportError: cannot import name fork
>  >>>

Python for Windows, if I remember correctly, has never supported forking. 
This is because the underlying process execution code does not have
support for the standard copy-on-write semantic which makes unix fork
fast.

Cygwin Python does support fork, but I believe this is through a literal
copying of the memory space, which is far slower than unix fork.

Until Microsoft adds kernel support for fork, don't expect standard
Windows Python to support it.

 - Josiah