[Python-Dev] Fixing the GIL (with a BFS scheduler)

[Bill Janssen]

Martin v. Löwis <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

> > I'd hate to let a fundamental flaw like this go through simply because
> > someone somewhere somewhen set a completely synthetic deadline.
> 
> No, it's not like that. We set the deadline so that we are able to
> cancel discussions like this one. It would be possible to change the
> schedule, if we would agree that it was for a good cause - which we don't.

I do appreciate that, and also what you and Antoine are saying.

> > If threading performance wasn't broken on multicore, I'd agree with you.
> > But right now, *everyone* has to be an expert just to use Python 2.x
> > effectively on modern multicore hardware
> 
> Not at all. Just use the multiprocessing module instead, and be done.
> It's really easy to use if you already managed to understand threads.

But that's just the problem.  Most folks don't use "threads", they use a
higher-level abstraction like the nltk library.  Does it use threads?
Has its owner ported it to py3k?  Has its owner ported it to the
multiprocessing module?  I have to be an expert to know.

I'll stop talking about this now...  At least, here.  Apparently we only
need to fix this for OS X.

Bill