[Python-Dev] Thoughts fresh after EuroPython

[Terry Reedy]

On 7/26/2010 2:40 AM, Peter Portante wrote:

> Yet, shouldn't we be able to write a simple embarrassingly parallel
> multithreaded algorithm in python (no C-extensions) and have its execution
> use all the cores on a system using CPython?

Abstractly, yes, and I believe you can do that now with some 
implementations.

The actual questions are along the lines of ...

What would be the cost of making that happen with CPython?
Who would be disadvanged making that happen with CPython?
and for both of those, Is the tradeoff worth it?

Another way to put it is
Should CPython be optimized for 1, 2, 3, or 4 or more cores?
The answer to this is obviously changing. I will soon replace a single 
core with a 4/6 core machine, so would be right in the middle on that, 
except that my current work is all single-threaded anyway. But that 
could change.

Should all implementation be optimized the same way?
Of course, with several developers focused on these issues, we could 
have a compile time switch and distribute multiple Windows binaries, but 
this does not seem like fun, volunteer-type stuff.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy