[Python-Dev] GIL, Python 3, and MP vs. UP

[Guido van Rossum]

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/)