[Python-Dev] The endless GIL debate: why not remove thread support instead? (original) (raw)

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Sat Dec 13 17:57:44 CET 2008

If I remember correctly (when threading was invented in the mid-1980s) threads were originally described as "lightweight processes". The perceived advantage at the time was the ability to have multiple threads of control with shared memory: this was much faster than the available inter-process communication mechanisms. On a single-processor computer synchronization was much less of a problem.

regards Steve

Guido van Rossum wrote: > Yes, this is what threads were designed for. As an abstraction to have > multiple "threads of control" on a single processor (in a single > process). The whole multi-core business came decades later. (Classic > multi-processors have something called threads too, but they, too, > came later than the original single-core-single-CPU thread concept, > and often threads on those systems have properties that don't match > how threads work on modern multi-core CPUs.) >> On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 5:32 AM, Michael Foord > <fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk> wrote: >> Lennart Regebro wrote: >>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 02:13, Sturla Molden <sturla at molden.no> wrote: >>>>>>> I genuinely think the use of threads should be discouraged. It leads to >>>> code that are full of bugs and difficult to maintain - race conditions, >>>> deadlocks, and livelocks are common pitfalls. >>>>>>> The use of threads for load balancing should be discouraged, yes. That >>> is not what they are designed for. Threads are designed to allow >>> blocking processes to go on in the background without blocking the >>> main process. This, they are very useful for. Removing thread support >>> would therefore be a very big mistake. It's needed, it has it's uses, >>> just not the one you want. >>>>>>>> That's an interesting assertion about what threads were designed for. Do you >> have anything to back it up? >>

Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/

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