[Python-Dev] Making the GIL faster & lighter on Windows (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Wed May 27 13:24:02 CEST 2009

Martin v. Löwis wrote:

No: fairness in mutex synchronization means that every waiter for the mutex will eventually acquire it; it won't happen that one thread starves waiting for the mutex. This is something that the mutex needs to provide, not the application.

CriticalSections are first come first served on Windows, just like a regular mutex. As Phillip already noted, their main limitation is that they don't work cross-process (of course, that's also where they get their extra speed).

Since we don't need the cross-process feature and we don't support Win 9x any more, this is certainly an idea worth looking at.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

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