Arthur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ... > speaking in Python. As to these concepts, the implicit point of view > seems to be to leave Python to learn the concepts, and return to > Python to understand its implementation of the details, once the > concepts are well grasped.
Hmmm, well, the concepts are reasonably independent of the programming language involved. If anything, threads and processes may be more tied to whatever _operating system_ you're using. A very fundamental but good introduction to processes (and other such basics) is for example at <http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO/>, but it will be only partially applicable if you need to understand in depth the process-model of Windows. But of course this is about the concepts, not the practice of programming to interact with them. > If I want to no more than be able to follow, say, the current Idle > code of the PyShell module, I can find very little guidance from > within the canon of Python literature. > > Help? Hmmm - have you looked at Deitel, Deitel, Liperi, Wiedermann, "Python how to program", chapters 18 (Process Management) and 19 (Multithreading), pages 613-687? They seem to do a rather workmanlike job -- of course, they can't do full justice to the subjects in 75 pages; and if you don't want to buy a vast, costly 1300-pages tome for the sake of those 75 pages, I can't really blame you, either. Still, without some clarification of how (if at all) those 75 pages fail to meet your learning needs, it's hard to know what else to suggest. And what about Norman Matloff's <http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/Python/PyThreads.pdf>, the first google hit if you're looking for python threads ? I haven't looked into it, but, again, without some specific explanation of how it fails to meet your needs, it's hard to offer alternatives. It is, of course, out of the question that the Nutshell can get into the tutorial business -- MY space budget for the whole "Threads and processes" chapter is around 20 small pages, and I personally consider it quite a feat to have managed to fit within that compass 4 pages of advice on threaded program architecture as well as a down-to-the-bone reference to modules threading, Queue, os (process-related subset) _and_ mmap;-). Still, others _are_ writing Python tutorials, and it does seem that books such as "Learning Python" and even "Dive into Python" are (understandably, I guess) avoiding the subject... so, pinpointing what's being looked for by learners, which Deitel et al, Matloff, etc, are missing, might help future editions and versions of such books... Alex -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
