How many threads are too many?

R

rbt

This may be a stupid question, but here goes:

When designing a threaded application, is there a pratical limit on the
number of threads that one should use or is there a way to set it up so
that the OS handles the number of threads automatically? I am developing
on 32-bit x86 Intel systems with python 2.4.1. The OS will be Linux and
Windows.

I have an older app that used to work fine (254 threads) on early 2.3
Pythons, but now, I get this error with 2.4.1 and 2.3.5:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "net_queue_and_threads.py", line 124, in ?
thread.start()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/threading.py", line 416, in start
_start_new_thread(self.__bootstrap, ())
thread.error: can't start new thread
 
A

Aahz

When designing a threaded application, is there a pratical limit on the
number of threads that one should use or is there a way to set it up so
that the OS handles the number of threads automatically? I am developing
on 32-bit x86 Intel systems with python 2.4.1. The OS will be Linux and
Windows.

The practical limit is somewhere between five and a hundred threads,
depending on what you're doing. The more I/O you're doing, the more
greater numbers of threads will benefit you.
I have an older app that used to work fine (254 threads) on early 2.3
Pythons, but now, I get this error with 2.4.1 and 2.3.5:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "net_queue_and_threads.py", line 124, in ?
thread.start()
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/threading.py", line 416, in start
_start_new_thread(self.__bootstrap, ())
thread.error: can't start new thread

That's rather odd. Which OS is this? Did you build Python yourself or
did you download it?
 

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