Addition of multiprocessing ill-advised?

[Steve Holden]

James Mills wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Ben Finney <ben at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>> Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> writes:
>>> I think that [Python 2.6 was a rushed release]. 2.6 showed it in the
>>> inclusion (later recognizable as somewhat ill-advised so late in the
>>> day) of multiprocessing […]
> 
> Steve: It's just a new package - it used to be available
> as a 3rd-party package. I dare say it most definitely was
> -not- ill-advised. It happens to be a great addition to the
> standard library.
> 
>> What was ill-advised about the addition of the 'multiprocessing'
>> module to Python 2.6? I ask because I haven't yet used it in anger,
>> and am not sure what problems have been found in it.
> 
> I have found no problems with it - I've recently integrated it with my
> event/component framework (1). In my library I use Process, Pipe
> and Value.
> 
It will be a great library in time, but the code was immature and
insufficiently tested before the 2.6 release. The decision to include it
late in the release cycle

There are 32 outstanding issues on multiprocessing, two of them critical
and four high. Many of them are platform-specific, so if they don't hit
your platform you won't mind.

Jesse did a great job in the time available. It would have been more
sensible to wait until 2.7 to include it in the library, IMHO, or make
the decision to include it in 2.6 in a more timely fashion. The one
advantage of the inclusion is that the issues have been raised now, so
as long as maintenance continues the next round will be better.

regards
 Steve
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