Python un-plugging the Interpreter

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:49:46 -0700, Alex Martelli <aleax at mac.com> wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp at snipabacken.dyndns.org> wrote:
>    ...
>> > Perhaps the current wave of dual-core and quad-core CPUs in cheap
>> > consumer products would change people's perceptions -- I wonder...
>> 
>> Maybe it would change /perceptions/, but would normal users suddenly
>> start running things that are (a) performance-critical, (b) written in
>> Python and (c) use algorithms that are possible to parallellize?
>
> That depends on what "normal" means.

I used your phrase "cheap consumer products" to the max -- defining
"normal users" as people who wouldn't have used an SMP machine two
years ago, and don't actively choose dual core today (or choose it
because they like HP's tandem bike ads).

> For the common definition (users
> that don't _write_ programs), it would depend on what ``developers''
> release to the world.

>> I doubt it. (But I admit that I am a bit negative towards thread
>> programming in general, and I have whined about this before.)
>
> I'm no big fan of threading either, believe me.  But with multi-core
> CPUs onrushing, exploiting them requires either that or multiple
> processes [...]

Yes. But that's where the current "concurrent programming craze" seems
so odd to me. It's as if the reasoning goes:

  "New machines are multi-core; thus we have to find first a reason,
  then a way to exploit them, on the process level".

Personally, I'm rarely CPU bound in my work, so I have a hard time
finding that reason. I doubt even Windows users are CPU bound, except
when a program hangs at 100% CPU.

When I get a multi-core CPU eventually, those other CPUs will mostly
do kernel-space tasks, offload things like rendering windows and doing
ssh encryption/compression, and let me type "make -j2" to compile my C
source code faster. No threading is needed for those things. (And even
if it was, I doubt anyone would rewrite either the Linux kernel, X11,
ssh or make in Python ;-)

BR,
/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@        Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/     snipabacken.dyndns.org>  R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!