Introducing Python, 2nd Edition

Chapter 15. Data in Time: Processes and Concurrency

One thing a computer can do that most humans can’t is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.

Jack Handey

This chapter and the next two are a bit more challenging than earlier ones. In this one we cover data in time (sequential and concurrent access on a single computer), and following that we look at data in a box (storage and retrieval with special files and databases) in Chapter 16 and then data in space (networking) in Chapter 17.

Programs and Processes

When you run an individual program, your operating system creates a single process. It uses system resources (CPU, memory, disk space) and data structures in the operating system’s kernel (file and network connections, usage statistics, and so on). A process is isolated from other processes—it can’t see what other processes are doing or interfere with them.

The operating system keeps track of all the running processes, giving each a little time to run and then switching to another, with the twin goals of spreading the work around fairly and being responsive to the user. You can see the state of your processes with graphical interfaces such as the Mac’s Activity Monitor (macOS), Task Manager on Windows-based computers, or the top command in Linux.

You can also access process data from your own programs. The standard library’s os module provides a common way of accessing some system information. For instance, the following functions get the process ID and ...