playing with spawning a limited number of processes

multiprocess_testing.py

from multiprocessing import Process
from time import sleep
from timeit import default_timer as timer

def test(i):
    print(i)
    sleep(5.0)

start = timer()
proc = []
for i in range(25):
    if len(proc) >= 5:
        print('waiting for a process to finish')
        if proc[0].is_alive():
            proc[0].join()
        proc.pop(0)
    else:
        p = Process(target=test, args=(i,))
        p.start()
        p
        proc.append(p)

# clean up
try:
    for p in proc:
        if proc[0].is_alive():
            proc[0].join()
except:
    pass


end = timer()
print(end - start)