[Python-Dev] Making python C-API thread safe (try 2)

[Skip Montanaro]

    Mitch> Unlike Andrew I don't think the lack of maintenance for 1.4's
    Mitch> free threading packages is due to any perception that threading
    Mitch> performance is unimportant.  It seems more likely that the
    Mitch> packages were not updated because they proved not to solve the
    Mitch> performance problems, and that no alternatives have emerged
    Mitch> because the problem is hard to solve.

One reason (maybe the primary reason) it never went further than a patch to
1.4 was that it was slower in the (common) single-threaded case.  Free
threading is no magic bullet.  There is a lot of overhead in maintaining all
the fine-grained locks necessary to dispense with the GIL.

    Mitch> Having said all of that, it looks like this thread originated on
    Mitch> python-dev, rather than on c.l.py where I found it.  So I'm
    Mitch> probably missing some reasons for what appears to be a dismissive
    Mitch> attitude toward Harri's efforts.  I'll go read the python-dev
    Mitch> archives.

Python-dev is the place to discuss concrete proposals.  Python-list is the
place to hash out ideas.  Simple as that.  You can read the few messages in
python-dev in the archive for September:

    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-September/thread.html

Search for "thread safe".

Skip