[IPython-user] [IPython-dev] Development plans update

[Francesc Altet]

A Tuesday 05 February 2008, Francesc Altet escrigué:
> A Sunday 03 February 2008, Brian Granger escrigué:
> > At some level I agree.  While all the operations _may_ be
> > asynchronous, it will be up to each frontend whether or not it
> > exposes that to the user.  If a frontend desires, it can make
> > everything synchronous again. In a terminal based frontend, this
> > would surely be the default.  In GUI frontends, you could imagine
> > that the user could even choose which behavior is exhibited.  But
> > the APIs do need to be designed with the possibility of things
> > being asynchronous.
>
> Not only in GUI frontends, I think that allowing the user to choose
> between synchronous and asynchronous mode would be necessary for all
> frontends, not only GUI.  I'd also set the synchronous mode the
> default for eveything (I'm not used on how Mathematica works, but I'm
> not sure if everybody will feel good with asynchronicity, at least at
> the beginning, but who knows).

Now that I think about it, why not use the existing %bg magic command to 
force an asynchronous command to happen?  That way, it wouldn't be 
necessary the existence of different synchronous/asynchronous modes, 
but rather, the default would always be synchronous and the user will 
decide when he wants to throw an asynchronous job.  This also may help 
in deciding how a double TAB should complete (i.e. variables depending 
on jobs in 'background' should never be tried to be completed).

Just thinking aloud,

-- 
>0,0<   Francesc Altet     http://www.carabos.com/
V   V   Cárabos Coop. V.   Enjoy Data
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