Will multithreading make python less popular?

Benjamin Kaplan benjamin.kaplan at case.edu
Thu Feb 19 21:53:23 EST 2009


On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Paul Rubin <http> wrote:

> Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:
> > > The slowness itself can be addressed by technical means, such as
> > > native-code compilation and eliminating the GIL.
> >
> > Given that the GIL remains to make Python run faster in the usual (up
> > to now, at least) case of 1 processor, that seems a strange statement.
>
> We've had this discussion before.  The 1-processor slowdown that you
> refer to comes from replacing the GIL with the blunt instrument of a
> lock around each reference count operation.  That has the advantage of
> not breaking CPython in a million places, but has the drawback of
> taking a big performance hit.  The long term fix is to replace
> reference counts with a tracing GC.  That is apparently not feasible
> in the framework of CPython and the many extension modules that have
> been written for it, so it would have to be accompanied by an
> implementation switch (e.g. PyPy).
>
> Steve Holden has mentioned Jython and Ironpython a few times in this
> thread.  Those are reasonable proofs of the concept of a GIL-less
> Python, but for various reasons (spelled J-V-M and W-i-n-d-o-w-s) are
> not all that suitable for many current Python users.


Actually, Mono supports IronPython so it will work on M-a-c, L-i-n-u-x,
S-o-l-a-r-i-s, and possibly even W-i-i and P-l-a-y-s-t-a-t-i-o-n-3.




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