Adding a Par construct to Python?

[jeremy at martinfamily.freeserve.co.uk]

>From a user point of view I think that adding a 'par' construct to
Python for parallel loops would add a lot of power and simplicity,
e.g.

par i in list:
    updatePartition(i)

There would be no locking and it would be the programmer's
responsibility to ensure that the loop was truly parallel and correct.

The intention of this would be to speed up Python execution on multi-
core platforms. Within a few years we will see 100+ core processors as
standard and we need to be ready for that.

There could also be parallel versions of map, filter and reduce
provided.

BUT...none of this would be possible with the current implementation
of Python with its Global Interpreter Lock, which effectively rules
out true parallel processing.

See: http://jessenoller.com/2009/02/01/python-threads-and-the-global-interpreter-lock/

What do others think?

Jeremy Martin