"Jorgen Grahn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 08:05:01 +0200, Hendrik van Rooyen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Jorgen Grahn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ... > >> I doubt it. (But I admit that I am a bit negative towards thread > >> programming in general, and I have whined about this before.) > >> > > > > I find this last statement interesting, because it differs so much > > from my own attitude - getting a thread running was one of the > > first things I did when I started getting to grips with python. > > > > Do you mind "whining" some more - maybe I can learn > > something - threads seem to me to make a lot of things so > > much easier and more natural, as I see them as sequences > > that run "at the same time", and I find this immensely useful > > for all sorts of things, as it enables me to think in a simple > > linear fashion about parts of complicated things. > > It's the other way around for me -- using a threaded design looks > superficially more linear, but all the complexity is still there, and > then some. I mean, threads are well known for causing surprising and > hard-to-track-down (and hard to trigger!) bugs and performance > problems. > > (I'm comparing with the Unix select() call, and I assume the APIs I > want to use are designed to work with select(). i.e. use select()able > file descriptors.) This is a valuable insight - it is to a large extent true that threading is used to "front end" i/o - but that is not its only use... I tend to use it to build, via Queue glue, structures that resemble systolic arrays - where each thread does a small part of a whole job. > > > And if you > > add queues, you have something in your hand that you can > > do quite fancy stuff with in a robust, simple manner... > > > > *grin* before I discovered the queue module, I was using > > named pipes to communicate between threads... > > > > So you could say I am a threading freak if you want to, and > > I won't argue. > > > > But I would like to hear the opposite viewpoint.. > > Good. My viewpoint is due to my Unix background (but I'm not > insinuating that all Unix users dislike threads). > > Eric Raymond's "The Art of Unix Programming" sums up the threading > criticism, I think: > > http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/multiprogramchapter.html > > /Jorgen Thanks - interesting link. This guy really is not turned on by threading... - Hendrik -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
