fork()

[Graham Matthews]

Tim Peters (tim_one at email.msn.com) wrote:
: Back at Python 1.4, a set of patches was developed (by Greg Stein) that
: *did* remove the global lock.  This meant fine-grained locking of other
: stuff as needed, refcounts included.  The interpreter has changed quite a
: bit since then, so old numbers aren't quantitatively relevant anymore; but
: it was indeed a significant slowdown for single-threaded Python programs.
: 
: It's particularly acute for Python because *everything* "is boxed"; nothing
: is exempt, and refcounting is never delayed.
: 
The Sisal language has an interesting approach to this problem. Rather
than try to lock each refcount, it had n areas of memory you could
allocate out of. When changing area i you had to lock it, but all users
of the other areas could proceed without blocking. This was useful
for do reference count fiddling.

grahaml


-- 
           As you grow up and leave the playground
       where you kissed your prince and found your frog
          Remember the jester that showed you tears
                   the script for tears