global interpreter lock

[Mike Meyer]

"Donn Cave" <donn at drizzle.com> writes:

> Quoth Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid>:
> | Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> writes:
> |> The real problem is that the concurrency models available in currently
> |> popular languages are still at the "goto" stage of language
> |> development.  Better models exist, have existed for decades, and are
> |> available in a variety of languages.
> | But Python's threading system is designed to be like Java's, and
> | actual Java implementations seem to support concurrent threads just fine.
> I don't see a contradiction here.  "goto" is "just fine", too --
> you can write excellent programs with goto.

Right. The only thing wrong with "goto" is that we've since found
better ways to describe program flow. These ways are less complex,
hence easier to use and understand.

> Mike, care to mention an example or two of the better models you
> had in mind there?

I've seen a couple of such, but have never been able to find the one I
really liked in Google again :-(. That leaves Eiffel's SCOOP (aka
Concurrent Eiffel).  You can find a short intro at <URL:
http://archive.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/technology/concurrency/short/page.html
>.

Even simpler to program in is the model used by Erlang. It's more CSP
than threading, though, as it doesn't have shared memory as part of
the model. But if you can use the simpler model to solve your problem
- you probably should.

       <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.