To thread or not to thread

[Sidd]

Hello,
      I was recently reading an article on threading in python and I
came across Global Interpreter Lock,now as a novince in python I was
cusrious about

1.Is writing a threaded code in python going to perform well than a
normal python  code.If so on what basis can it performance be measured.

2.Is writing a threaded code in python better than a code written in
C/C++ using PTHREADS.

If someone can comment on these questions, it would be great.