global interpreter lock

[Paul Rubin]

zen19725 at zen.co.uk (phil hunt) writes:
> >Let's see. Reality is that writing correct programs is hard. Writing
> >correct programs that use concurrency is even harder, because of the
> >exponential explosion of the order that operations can happen
> >in. Personally, I'm willing to use anything I can find that makes
> >those tasks easier.
> 
> Indeed so. Use threading (or whatever) when one has to, use an 
> asynchronous single-threaded process whenever you can.

This is silly.  You could say the exact same thing about if
statements.  The number of paths through the program is exponential in
the number of if statements executed.  So we better get rid of if
statements.

Really, the essence of programming is to find ways of organizing the
program to stay reliable and maintainable in the face of that
combinatorial explosion.  That means facing the problem and finding
solutions, not running away.  The principle is no different for
threads than it is for if statements.