Thread Support in Libs [Was: creating an instance of a random number generator]

Dan Connolly (connolly@www18.cern.ch)
17 Apr 1995 03:53:59 GMT

In article <9504071935.AA14413=guido@voorn.cwi.nl> Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl writes:

Python threads are now supported on Solaris, IRIX, Windows NT, and
probably OS/2 (and anything supporting pthreads). What support is
missing in your eyes?

Preemptive thread switching, even when running C callbacks.
This requires a lot of re-engineering. In fact, what you
get is more like Modula-3.

But right now, there are untold places in the python runtime and
libraries that can block indefinitely, no?

For example: can I do two http transfers simultaneously using
the httplib module? i.e. is the socket module thread-friendly?

Dan

--
Daniel W. Connolly        "We believe in the interconnectedness of all things"
Research Technical Staff, MIT/W3C
<connolly@w3.org>             http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/Connolly