Introduction
This article is sort-of a sequel to A Tale of Two Threads (APIs), but this time it’s about a significant difference between either C or C++ and Python threads. If you’re either a C or C++ programmer who’s dabbling with Python threads, you should be aware of what follows.
For the purposes of this article, all of POSIX threads (aka, pthreads), standard C threads, and standard C++ threads can be considered equivalent and will all be referred to simply as pthreads. (On POSIX systems, both C and C++ threads are typically implemented as a thin layer on top of pthreads anyway.)
Background
During my career, I’ve mostly used pthreads from either C or C++ programs. I’m not a Python expert. At most, I’ve written a handful of scripts in Python, the longest of which was around 350 lines, and none used threads.
