question about mutex.py

[Peter Hansen]

m_palmer45 at yahoo.ca wrote:
> yes, I read it, and I even know about threading's existence. I just
> thought that if something claims to be atomic, it better should be.

I think the term "atomic" is meaningful only when the context is known. 
  For example, "atomic" operations in the Python interpreter are 
certainly not atomic within the larger context of the CPU, and atomic 
CPU operations are not necessarily atomic in the context of a system 
with multiple CPUs.  If the context for mutex.py explicitly excludes 
multi-threading then you have to interpret "atomic" in whatever context 
that defines.

-Peter