[Python-Dev] GIL, Python 3, and MP vs. UP (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Sep 20 23:43:59 CEST 2005

On 9/20/05, John J Lee <jjl at pobox.com> wrote:

threading is not the only, nor the best, concurrency model. But maybe these chips designed with threading in mind blow that argument out of the water. I don't know enough to know whether that's true or not...

I don't know that any chips are designed with threading in mind. Fast threading benefits from fast context switches which benefits from small register sets. I believe the trend is towards ever large register sets. Also, multiple processors with shared memory don't scall all that well; multiple processors with explicit IPC channels scale much better. All arguments for multi-processing and against multi-threading.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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