Intuitive Python

Choosing ThreadPoolExecutor or ProcessPoolExecutor

Now that you’ve seen how to run code in threads or processes using ThreadPoolExecutor and ProcessPoolExecutor, which should you choose to use at any given time?

Let’s revisit the table we saw earlier in this chapter:

Module	Paradigm	Object	Share Memory?	Restricted by GIL?
threading	threads	Thread	Yes	Yes
multiprocessing	processes	Process	No	No

The two primary differences between Thread and Process objects have to do with how memory is shared and how something called the GIL restricts performance.

First, we’ll discuss memory sharing in Thread and Process objects.

Investigating Memory Sharing in Threads and Processes

In general, if you use the Thread object from the threading module, your “threaded” code will ...