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Multi-tasking in Python: Speed up your

program 10x by executing things
simultaneously
Step-by-step guide to apply threads and processes to speed up your code

Mike Huls · Follow

Published in Towards Data Science
7 min read · Nov 18, 2021

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An army of workers to help us execute faster (image by Brian McGowan on Unsplash)

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6/20/23, 3:30 PM Multi-tasking in Python: Speed up your program 10x by executing things simultaneously | by Mike Huls | Towards Data Science

This article focuses on speeding up your program by making it do multiple things at

To make
the same time. We don’t have toMedium work, we
idle while ourlogprogram
user data. waits for and API response
By using Medium, you agree to our
e.g; we can do somethingPrivacy
else in that same time! We’ll also get into how to apply
Policy, including cookie policy.
more CPU’s to speed up calculation times. At the end of this article you’ll:

understand the difference ways of multi-tasking

know when to apply a which technique

be able to speed up your own code by using the code examples

Before we begin I’d strongly suggest to check out the article below. It explains how
Python works under the hood and why it isn’t as fast as other languages. Also it
reveals why isn’t Python multi-threaded to begin with? You’ll have a better
understanding of what the problem we’re trying to solve in this article. Let’s code!

Why Python is so slow and how to speed it up

Take a look under the hood to see where Python’s bottlenecks lie
towardsdatascience.com

Threads and processes

Python can multi-task in two ways: threading and multiprocessing. On the surface
they appear very alike but are fundamentally different. In the parts below we’ll
examine both by using two simple metaphors. Our goal is to get an understanding of
the differences between threads and processes so that we know when to use which.

Threading is like making breakfast

Let’s make some breakfast: we’ll need a boiled egg, some toast and a cup of coffee so
we have 4 tasks:

1. toast bread

2. boil water

3. boil egg
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6/20/23, 3:30 PM Multi-tasking in Python: Speed up your program 10x by executing things simultaneously | by Mike Huls | Towards Data Science

4. switch on the coffee maker

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This is what we’re trying to make in as little time as possible (image by Eiliv-Sonas Aceron on Unsplash)

How would you go about this? One way is to perform each task sequentially; first
toast bread, then boil water and an egg an then switch on the coffee maker.
Although this process is pretty understandable, in the end it just leaves us with some
cold toast, a cold egg and a hot cup of coffee. Alternatively we could perform some
tasks simultaneously; we’ll switch on the coffee maker and toaster and boil some
water at the same time.

Let’s simulate this with some code.

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6/20/23, 3:30 PM Multi-tasking in Python: Speed up your program 10x by executing things simultaneously | by Mike Huls | Towards Data Science

1 def toast_bread():
2 print("toasting bread..")
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3 time.sleep(8) By using Medium, you agree to our
4 Privacy Policy, including cookie policy.
print("bread toasted")
5
6 def make_some_coffee():
7 print("turned on coffee maker..")
8 time.sleep(4)
9 print("Poured a nice cup of coffee")
10
11 def boil_water_and_egg():
12 print("boiling water..")
13 time.sleep(5.5)
14 print("water boiled")

py_multitask_1.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub view raw

We’ll run this code sequentially (one after the other) like this:

toast_bread()
boil_water_and_egg()
make_some_coffee()

Making breakfast sequentially will take around 17.5 seconds. This involves a lot of
waiting! Let’s multitask using threads:

1 from threading import Thread

2
3 threadlist = []
4
5 threadlist.append(Thread(target=toast_bread))
6 threadlist.append(Thread(target=boil_water_and_egg))
7 threadlist.append(Thread(target=make_some_coffee))
8
9 for t in threadlist:
10 t.start()
11
12 for t in threadlist:
13 t.join()

py_multitask_2.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub view raw

The code is pretty straight-forward: we’ll create some tasks and append all of them
to a list. Then we’ll start each thread in the list and wait for all of them to finish (this
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is what t.join() does). Making breakfast concurrently takes around 8 seconds!

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Our threaded way of making breakfast (image by Author)

The main take-away is that if there’s a lot of waiting involved (typical in I/O tasks like
downloading data, API requests, writing files..) we can use threads to multi-task.
Later on in this article we’ll examine why threads are the best option for I/O-tasks.

Multiprocessing is like making your homework

When we apply the same breakfast-making principle to making our homework we
run into a problem; doing math homework is a task that needs constant attention;
we can’t start it and wait for it to finish! In order to do multiple subjects of
homework at the same time we would need to clone ourselves, right?
Multiprocessing does exactly that.

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Time to focus and start processing (image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)

Let’s first translate our homework example to some code. We’ll simulate doing our
homework with some CPU-intensive processing; adding up all numbers from 0 to
100 million:

1 def do_math_homework():
2
3 res = 0
4 for i in range(100_000_000):
5 res += i
6 return res
7
8 def do_physics_homework(num_of_tasks:int):
9 """same as do_math_homework)"""
10 def do_chemistry_homework(num_of_tasks:int):
11 """same as do_math_homework)"""

py_multitask_3.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub view raw

These are CPU-intensive functions; we have to perform a lot of calculations. We’ll

first execute these functions sequentially, then threaded (same code as in the
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previous part) and then using the code below to spawn processes. Notice that the
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1 from multiprocessing import Process
2
3 processlist = []
4
5 processlist.append(Process(target=do_math_homework)))
6 processlist.append(Process(target=do_physics_homework))
7 processlist.append(Process(target=do_chemistry_homework))
8
9 for t in processlist:
10 t.start()
11
12 for t in processlist:
13 t.join()

py_multitask_4.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub view raw

The benchmaks:

sequentially: 14.22 seconds

using threads: 13.89 seconds

using processes: 6.00 seconds

You’ll see that using processes speeds up executing by quite a lot! The reason for this
is that we can use more CPU’s.

In this example we have to to 300 million * 3 calculations. Threading this doesn’t

speed it up because it’s still one CPU that has to perform 300 million calculations.
When using processes however, we spawn a brand-new instance of Python on a
different CPU. In other words we’ll use 3 CPU’s that can perform 100 million
calculations each!

Summary
Threads are for making-breakfast-like tasks: it involves a lot of waiting so one
‘person’ (or CPU) can do thing simultaneously. Processes are for ‘thinking-tasks’;
they need you to be there to do the heavy work. Multiprocessing is like creating a
clone of yourself so it can do other things while you are working on your task.

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Threading and multiprocessing

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talk a bit about the differences between the two.

Let’s find out how they run (image by Erik Mclean on Unsplash)

The GIL — why threads are more suitable for I/O

As discussed threads are suitable for I/O tasks whereas processes are suitable for
CPU-heavy tasks. The reason for this is Python’s infamous GIL; the Global
Interpreter Lock. This lock ensures that Python runs single-threaded, blocking
other processes that do not hold on to the lock. Many I/O processes release the GIL
while idle, making threading possible. Check out this article to understand why
Python applies the GIL.

In the homework-example threading makes no sense because the task involved is

not an I/O-task. Because of the GIL only one thread can execute at any moment so it
offers no speed-ups. When multiprocessing we create a fresh instance of Python
which has its own GIL. This way processes run in parallel, speeding up the
executing of our program significantly.
Processes can’t share resources

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The main one is that processes can’t share resources while threads can. This is
because a process works To make
with Medium work,
multiple CPU’swe log user data.a thread is just one CPU going
whereas
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back and forth between multiple threads.
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You can think of threading as a single CPU that first executes a few lines of code in
thread1, then it executes some lines in thread2, then moves on to thread3. Then it
executes the next line in thread1, then thread2 etc. Threading executes multiple
tasks concurrently; one worker that switches between tasks. For the user it looks as
though things happen simultaneously, this isn’t technically so.

When you spawn a new process a whole new instance of python is created and
allocated to a different CPU. This is the reason why two processes cannot share a
common resource. Processes run in parallel; there are multiple workers that work
on multiple tasks simultaneously.

Overhead
Processes take a little more time to spawn. This is the reason the homework
example is not three times faster but slightly less; first we’ll have to spawn the
processes before we can benefit from the parallelism.

Even more speed

Multi-tasking can solve a lot of speed-issues in Python but sometimes it’s just not
enough. Check out this or this article that show you how to compile a small part of
your code for a 100x speed increase.

Cython for absolute beginners: 30x faster code in two simple steps
Easy Python code compilation for blazingly fast applications
towardsdatascience.com

Conclusion

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Threading and multiprocessing can be used to speed up the execution of your code
To make
in many, many cases. In this Medium
article work, explored
we’ve we log user data.
what threads and processes are,
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how they work and whenPrivacy
to usePolicy,
which. Don’t forget to check out this article on how
including cookie policy.
to apply pools and for benchmarks!

If you have suggestions/clarifications please comment so I can improve this article.

In the meantime, check out my other articles on all kinds of programming-related
topics like these:

Why Python is slow and how to speed it up

Advanced multi-tasking in Python: applying and benchmarking threadpools and

processpools

Write you own C extension to speed up Python x100

Getting started with Cython: how to perform >1.7 billion calculations per second
in Python

Create a fast auto-documented, maintainable and easy-to-use Python API in 5

lines of code with FastAPI

Create and publish your own Python package

Create Your Custom, private Python Package That You Can PIP Install From Your
Git Repository

Virtual environments for absolute beginners — what is it and how to create one
(+ examples)

Dramatically improve your database insert speed with a simple upgrade

Happy coding!

— Mike

P.S: like what I’m doing? Follow me!

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