[Python-Dev] Asking for reversion

[Raymond Hettinger]

> On Feb 5, 2019, at 9:52 AM, Giampaolo Rodola' <g.rodola at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  The main problem I have with this PR is that it seems to introduce 8 brand new APIs, but since there is no doc, docstrings or tests it's unclear which ones are supposed to be used, how or whether they are supposed to supersede or deprecate older (slower) ones involving inter process communication.

The release manger already opined that if tests and docs get finished for the second alpha, he prefers not to have a reversion and would rather on build on top of what already shipped in the first alpha.  FWIW, the absence of docs isn't desirable but it isn't atypical.  PEP 572 code landed without the docs. Docs for dataclasses arrived much after the code. The same was true for the decimal module. Hopefully, everyone will team up with Davin and help him get the ball over the goal line.

BTW, this is a feature we really want.  Our multicore story for Python isn't a good one.  Due to the GIL, threading usually can't exploit multiple cores for better performance.  Async has lower overhead than threading but achieves its gains by keeping all the data in a single process.  That leaves us with multiprocessing where the primary obstacle has been the heavy cost of moving data between processes.  If that cost can be reduced, we've got a winning story for multicore.

This patch is one of the better things that is happening to Python.  Aside from last week's procedural missteps and communication issues surrounding the commit, the many months of prior work on this have been stellar. How about we stop using a highly public forum to pile up on Davin (being the subject of a thread like this can be a soul crushing experience).  Right now, he could really use some help and support from everyone on the team.


Raymond