[Python-Dev] Thoughts fresh after EuroPython (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Jul 26 05:42:14 CEST 2010

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Peter Portante <peter.a.portante at gmail.com> wrote:

FWIW: We use Python at Tabblo, straddled across Python 2.5.4 and 2.6.5. They work. And they work well. But we make light use of threads (mostly background I/O handling), and heavy use of multiple processes because we can't take advantage of our multi-core systems otherwise.

Isn't this an indication that the GIL is, in fact, not (much of) a problem?

I wish those trying to get rid of the GIL well. But it may not be the panacea some folks are hoping for. Multi-threaded programming remains hard (and removing the GIL might actually make it harder).

Jython and IronPython don't have a GIL, and I think PyPy may not either. Does anyone have experience with GIL-free programming in one of those?

-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)

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