[Python-Dev] Pythonic concurrency (original) (raw)

Ian Bicking ianb at colorstudy.com
Mon Oct 10 23:57:24 CEST 2005

Phillip J. Eby wrote:

What the GIL-ranters don't get is that the GIL actually gives you just enough determinism to be able to write threaded programs that don't crash, and that maybe will even work if you treat every point of interaction between threads as a minefield and program with appropriate care. So, if threads are "easy" in Python compared to other langauges, it's because of the GIL, not in spite of it.

Three cheers for the GIL!

For the record, since I was quoted at the beginning of this subthread, I don't think threads are easy. But among all ways to handle concurrency, I just don't think they are so bad. And unlike many alternatives, they are relatively easy to get started with, and you can do a lot of work in a threaded system without knowing anything about threads. Of course, threads aren't the only way to accomplish that, just one of the easiest.

-- Ian Bicking / ianb at colorstudy.com / http://blog.ianbicking.org

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