Hey everyone, I know I've posted several questions regarding python and python's parallel capabilities so bear with me as I've never attempted to incite discussion. However, today I'm interested in sparking discussion over having an OpenMP style of interface in python.
For those of you familiar with OpenMP, its a pragmatic api for parallelizing software. For more information I invite anyone to do some google searches, there's a plethora of information available. Just to give a simple example of what i'm talking about, in OpenMP you would insert a pragma above a section of code you want to parallelize. In C it might look something like: int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { #pragma omp parallel printf("Hello, world.\n"); return 0; } In which case threads are spawn and handled. OpenMP of course has more than this available for developers, but I'm just trying to paint a picture before I start asking questions. Anyhow, onto the meat of the discussion. Would the python community be interested in parallel programming this way? Although I understand python already supports threading I thought that this was a real interesting (and easy) way of writing parallel code. For example, new keywords could be added to the python interpreter, such as parallel: Ex: ####### #!usr/bin/python parallel: print "I am a thread" ####### Taking this a step further, OpenMP or an OpenMP style implementation could be added to python. In addition easy to use/read, one possible benefit I could see of writing parallel python code this way would be providing a layer of abstraction between parallel code and threading constructs. For example, as a developer or community standards change threading in python code would not have to be re-written. Developers would create an interface between python's OpenMP style code and whatever their new threading libraries may be (this is one of many ways it could happen). Ultimately providing more code portability between people using different threading standards (should they ever become available). I see other use cases as well, but I just wanted to throw a couple ideas to see if this was worth thinking about further. Thanks for reading this one, I know it was long but I'd really appreciate your comments! -Carl -- Carl J. Van Arsdall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Build and Release MontaVista Software -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list