[Python-ideas] micro-threading PEP proposal (long) -- take 2!

[Bruce Frederiksen]

Yes!

Thanks!

-bruce

Andrew Akira Toulouse wrote:
> Forgive the pedantry: do you mean "breathe", rather than "breath"?
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 6:42 PM, Bruce Frederiksen <dangyogi at gmail.com 
> <mailto:dangyogi at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     In this case, you're misunderstanding :-).
>
>     What I meant by a "long running" micro_thread starving other
>     micro-threads, was a micro_thread that doesn't do anything that
>     would cause it to be suspended (e.g., I/O, sleep).
>
>     For example, calculating the number PI to 2000 digits will starve
>     other micro_threads.
>
>     Each time a micro_thread does something which causes it to be
>     suspended (like a file.read that needs to access the disk, a
>     socket.recv or a time.sleep), other micro_threads may run.  So the
>     first micro_thread doesn't cause the whole os-thread (generally
>     the whole Python program) to be suspended, like it does now.
>
>     But if one micro_thread uses the CPU for a long time without doing
>     any I/O, then other micro_threads are starved because
>     micro_threads are non-preemptive (unlike os-threads).
>
>     I'm adding a "breath" function that allows responsible
>     micro_threads to "come up for air" periodically, to give other
>     micro_threads a chance to run.  But nothing forces a micro_thread
>     to cooperate like this...
>
>     I hopes this helps to clear things up!
>
>     -bruce
>