[Python-Dev] The endless GIL debate: why not remove thread support instead?

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> If I remember correctly (when threading was invented in the mid-1980s)
> threads were originally described as "lightweight processes".

According to

http://www.serpentine.com/blog/threads-faq/the-history-of-threads/

that's when threads where *reinvented*. They were originally invented
in 1965, on Multics (1970) they were used to perform compilation in the
background. When Unix came along, it *added* address space separation,
introducing what is now known as processes.

> The
> perceived advantage at the time was the ability to have multiple threads
> of control with shared memory: this was much faster than the available
> inter-process communication mechanisms. On a single-processor computer
> synchronization was much less of a problem.

Historically, it was vice versa. First there were
threads/processes/tasks with shared variables, semaphores, etc, and
later address space separation was added.

Regards,
Martin