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Re: Future of Pypy?

From Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Subject Re: Future of Pypy?
Date 2015-02-27 13:40 -0800
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <878ufj824g.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> (permalink)
References (14 earlier) <mailman.19110.1424737905.18130.python-list@python.org> <871tlgaxi7.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> <mailman.19113.1424743389.18130.python-list@python.org> <87mw43apmf.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> <54ec20d0$0$11103$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>

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Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> writes:
> An interesting point of view: threading is harmful because it removes 
> determinism from your program.
> http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/01/threads-considered-harmful.html

Concurrent programs are inherently nondeterministic because they respond
to i/o events that can happen in any order.  I looked at the paper cited
in that article and it seemed like handwaving.  Then it talks about
threaded programs being equivalent if they are the same over all
interleavings of input, and then goes on about that being horribly
difficult to establish.  It talked about program inputs as infinite
sequences of bits.  OK, a standard conceit in mathematical logic is to
call an infinite sequence of bits a "real number".  So it seems to me
that such a proof would just be a theorem about real numbers or sets of
real numbers, and freshman calculus classes are already full of proofs
like that.  The presence of large sets doesn't necessarily make math all
that much harder.  The test suite for HOL Light actually uses an
inaccessible cardinal, if that means anything to you.

IOW he says it's difficult and maybe it is, but he doesn't make any
attempt to explain why it's difficult, at least once there's some tools
(synchronization primitives etc.) to control the concurrency.  He seems
instead to ignore decades of work going back to Dijkstra and Wirth and
those guys.  It would be a lot more convincing if he addressed that
existing literature and said why it wasn't good enough to help write
real programs that work.

He then advocates something he calls the "PN model" (processes
communicating by message passing) but that seems about the same as what
I've heard called communicating sequential processes (CSP), which are
the execution model of Erlang and is what I've been using with Python
threads and queues.  Maybe there's some subtle difference.  Anyway
there's again plenty of theory about CSP, which are modelled with
Pi-calculus (process calculus) which can be interpreted in lambda
calculus, so sequential verification techniques are still useful on it.

Hmm, I see there's a Wikipedia article "Kahn process networks" about PN
networks as mentioned, so I guess I'll look at it.  I see it claims a
KPN is deterministic on its inputs, while I think CSP's might not be.

> Some discussion of the pros and cons of threading:
> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ThreadsConsideredHarmful

This wasn't very informative either.  

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Thread

Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-22 12:45 +0000
  Re: Future of Pypy? jkn <jkn_gg@nicorp.f9.co.uk> - 2015-02-22 04:58 -0800
    Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-22 15:30 +0000
      [OT] - BASIC is still not a bad choice, was Re: Future of Pypy? Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 17:24 -0700
  Re: Future of Pypy? Laura Creighton <lac@openend.se> - 2015-02-22 14:27 +0100
    Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-22 15:36 +0000
      Re: Future of Pypy? Laura Creighton <lac@openend.se> - 2015-02-22 18:22 +0100
        Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-22 11:02 -0800
          Re: Future of Pypy? Laura Creighton <lac@openend.se> - 2015-02-22 20:51 +0100
            Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-22 12:14 -0800
              Re: Future of Pypy? Laura Creighton <lac@openend.se> - 2015-02-22 23:13 +0100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-22 18:45 -0800
          Re: Future of Pypy? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-23 12:18 +1100
            Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-22 18:04 -0800
              Re: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 13:16 +1100
              Re: Future of Pypy? Ryan Stuart <ryan.stuart.85@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 03:16 +0000
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-22 19:45 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Ryan Stuart <ryan.stuart.85@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 04:00 +0000
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-22 22:13 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Ryan Stuart <ryan.stuart.85@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 07:32 +0000
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-23 16:11 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 11:31 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-23 17:50 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 13:03 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-23 20:40 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-24 17:57 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-27 13:40 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-02-27 18:47 -0500
                Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Ryan Stuart <ryan.stuart.85@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 00:35 +0000
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-23 21:27 -0800
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 16:57 +1100
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-23 22:23 -0800
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-02-24 10:08 +0200
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-24 15:53 -0800
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-02-25 07:25 +0200
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Marcos Almeida Azevedo <marcos.al.azevedo@gmail.com> - 2015-02-25 13:34 +0800
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-02-25 07:46 +0200
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-25 16:54 +1100
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Marcos Almeida Azevedo <marcos.al.azevedo@gmail.com> - 2015-02-25 13:58 +0800
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 23:02 -0700
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-25 17:07 +1100
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-02-25 16:37 +0000
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-02-25 10:00 -0700
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-02-25 17:16 +0000
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-26 04:22 +1100
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-02-25 19:44 -0500
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Ryan Stuart <ryan.stuart.85@gmail.com> - 2015-02-25 00:59 +0000
                Re: Are threads bad? - was: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-26 21:55 -0800
              Re: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 14:25 +1100
              Re: Future of Pypy? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-23 18:41 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-02-23 10:16 +0200
                Re: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 20:19 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-24 17:56 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 18:16 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2015-02-23 23:57 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2015-02-23 11:39 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-24 13:15 +1100
                Re: Future of Pypy? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-23 17:47 -0800
                Re: Future of Pypy? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-02-24 10:12 +0200
      Re: Future of Pypy? Emile van Sebille <emile@fenx.com> - 2015-02-24 09:57 -0800
  Re: Future of Pypy? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-23 01:05 +1100
    Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-22 15:44 +0000
      Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-22 19:20 +0000
        Re: Future of Pypy? Laura Creighton <lac@openend.se> - 2015-02-22 22:45 +0100
          Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-23 14:04 +0000
            Re: Future of Pypy? Laura Creighton <lac@openend.se> - 2015-02-23 17:16 +0100
  Re: Future of Pypy? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-02-23 01:34 -0500
  Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Cook <davecook@nowhere.net> - 2015-02-23 11:36 +0000
    Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Farrance <DaveFarrance@OMiTTHiSyahooANDTHiS.co.uk> - 2015-02-23 14:13 +0000
      Cython - was: Future of Pypy? Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml@behnel.de> - 2015-02-23 16:43 +0100
      Re: Future of Pypy? Dave Cook <davecook@nowhere.net> - 2015-02-23 23:23 +0000

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