Parallel Python or Ruby?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=223972

by randomhack • 18 years ago

6 20 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If you were to add some parallel language constructs to Python or Ruby or <insert your favourite language>, what would you add? Lets assume you are only allowed to add 1 or 2 constructs so you dont go changing the whole language upside-down. Also assume that you are not allowed to take something out of the language only add to it. Please describe in detail with actual examples if possible. Dont just say "I will add actors" at a very high level.

kilowatt• 18 years ago

Keep in mind that Python 2.6 already has the new multiprocessing package, which presents a simple interface for multiprocess computation.

I'd like to poke around with Python's compiler module and look at the AST--you could enforce that a certain class of functions have no side effects, and then spawn multiple processes to execute them semi magically.

Futures like the ones in IO (http://www.iolanguage.com/scm/git/checkout/Io/docs/IoGuide.h...) always struck me as a pretty cool way to abstract away synchronization problems. Using the multiprocess stuff as a background would be fun.

randomhack2• 18 years ago

Hmm is poking around the AST necessary? What about looking at the bytecode instead?

dhotson• 18 years ago

One change to ruby that would be useful, would be to make Enumerable.collect run in parallel.

There's probably a whole bunch of other Enumerable methods that could be made to run in parallel as well.

fizx• 18 years ago

gem install facets require "rubygems" require "facets/thread" %w[a b c].threaded_map{|str| puts str }

It's multicore if you're using jruby.

throttle2• 18 years ago

Haven't you heard about the egregious buffer overflow vulnerabilities found recently in Ruby? Not a good idea to use it for anything serious in light of those, IMO.

jrockway4• 18 years ago

I'm not a Ruby fan, but wouldn't finding those buffer overflows make it more secure? Now that they've been found, they're fixed. (Sure, it could be indicative of overall careless design, but I don't think that's the case here. A few silly mistakes, now no longer a problem.)

Finally, Ruby has more than one implementation. Finding a hole in one implementation says nothing about the language overall.

throttle2• 18 years ago

The mistakes are so amateurish that it should raise questions about the rest of the codebase (i.e. the defects which are yet to be found)...

tptacek6• 18 years ago

Yes. Everyone else: find a large C codebase that has shipped without an integer overflow. Go ahead. I'm waiting.

tptacek6• 18 years ago

Haven't you heard about JF's talk at PH-Neutral and the memory corruption vulns they found in Python and Perl? Not a good idea to use those for anything serious either. I guess we're all stuck with Erlang.

jrockway4• 18 years ago

If you use Coro with Perl, you can say something like:

  async {
    do_something;
    cede;
    do_something;
  }

  do_something_else;
  cede;

See http://search.cpan.org/dist/Coro/Coro.pm for more information.

[Edit: If you want to see a continuation-based web framework built with Coro, look at Continuity: http://search.cpan.org/~awwaiid/Continuity-0.994/lib/Continu...

It's very cool.]

Kaizyn• 18 years ago

Hello randomhack,

Have you heard of Stackless Python? That might be what you are looking for. http://www.stackless.com/

randomhack2• 18 years ago

I have read a bit about stackless. Neat implementation but it still suffers from GIL? You can launch thousands of microthreads but apparently they still run on single core?

tzury• 18 years ago

Do we have here a solution looking for a problem?

tptacek6• 18 years ago

Very yes.

Parallel Python or Ruby?

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