[Python-ideas] yield from multiple iterables (was Re: The async API of the future: yield-from)

[Jim Jewett]

On 10/21/12, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Steve Dower <Steve.Dower at microsoft.com>
> wrote:

>> It has synchronisation which is _aware_ of threads, but it never creates,
>> requires or uses them. It simply ensures thread-safe reentrancy, which
>> will be required for any general solution unless it is completely banned
>> from interacting across CPU threads.

> I don't see it that way. Any time you acquire a lock, you may be
> blocked for a long time. In a typical event loop that's an absolute
> no-no. Typically, to wait for another thread, you give the other
> thread a callback that adds a new event for *this* thread.

That (with or without rescheduling this thread to actually process the
event) is a perfectly reasonable solution, but I'm not sure how
obvious it is.  People willing to deal with the conventions and
contortions of twisted are likely to just use twisted.  A general API
should have a straightforward way to weight for a result; even
explicitly calling wait() may be too much to ask if you want to keep
assuming that other events will cooperate.

 > Perhaps. Lots of possibilities in this design space.
>
>> (*I'm inclined to define this [the Future interface] as 'result()', 'done()',
>> 'add_done_callback()', 'exception()', 'set_result()' and 'set_exception()'
>> functions. Maybe more, but I think that's sufficient. The current
>> '_waiters' list is an optimisation for add_done_callback(),  and doesn't
>> need to be part of the interface.)

> Agreed. I don't see much use for the cancellation stuff and all the
> extra complexity that adds to the interface.

wait_for_any may well be launching different strategies to solve the
same problem, and intending to ignore all but the fastest.  It makes
sense to go ahead and cancel the slower strategies.  (That said, I
agree that the API shouldn't guarantee that other tasks are actually
cancelled, let alone that they are cancelled before side effects
occur.)

-jJ