On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 2:01 AM, Joseph L. Casale <jcas...@activenetwerx.com> wrote: > If it weren't for these "useless" threads, you wouldn't have even been able > to send that message, let alone do anything on a computer for that matter.
Not sure about that. I think it would be entirely possible to build a computer that has no C threads, just processes (with separate memory spaces) and HLL threads governed by GILs - that is, each process cannot possibly consume more than 100% CPU time. Threads aren't inherently required for anything, but they do make certain jobs easier. When I grew up with threads, multi-core home computers simply didn't exist, so in effect the *entire computer* had a GIL. Threads still had their uses (fast response on thread 0 makes for a responsive GUI, then the heavy processing gets done on a spun-off thread with presumably lower scheduling priority), and that's not changing. Requiring that only one thread of any given process be running at a time is just a minor limitation, and one that I would accept as part of the restrictions of high level languages. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list