What is situation with threads in Python

[Leonard J. Reder]

Hello Mark,

I took your three day course here at JPL and recall that you said
something was wrong with the implementation of threads within Python
but I cannot recall what. So what is wrong with threads in Python?

The other part of this question is, if there is something wrong with
the threads in Python has anyone wrapped the Posix threads C api using
swig to fix this problem? I work on Solaris/Linux systems and this
seems like a quick fix - maybe.

Enjoyed the class a great deal. I am also sending this to the news
group in hopes of various interesting replies. Maybe there is a web
article on this topic already that someone could send the URL.

Thanks for all replies,

Len
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____________________________________________________
Leonard J. Reder
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Interferometry Systems and Technology Section 383
Email: (e-mail address removed)
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[Bill Mill]

Hello Mark,

I took your three day course here at JPL and recall that you said
something was wrong with the implementation of threads within Python
but I cannot recall what. So what is wrong with threads in Python?

I'm going to guess that he meant the Global Interpreter Lock is what's
wrong with Python threads. You can read about it in the docs at
http://docs.python.org/api/threads.html and get some good analysis
from Ian Bicking (with some excellent, and some not so excellent,
comments): http://blog.ianbicking.org/gil-of-doom.html .

The other part of this question is, if there is something wrong with
the threads in Python has anyone wrapped the Posix threads C api using
swig to fix this problem? I work on Solaris/Linux systems and this
seems like a quick fix - maybe.

Nope, since the interpreter is not entirely thread-safe, I don't
believe you can wrap pthreads.