An experiment with pprocess

pprocess_test.py

import pprocess
import time
import numpy as np

# Define a function to parallelize:
def takeuptime(x):
    """A function to waste CPU cycles"""
    time.sleep(0.1)
    return x[-1]
    
n = 256
samples = 64
list_of_args = [np.random.randn(n) for i in xrange(samples)]

# Parallel computation:
nproc = 4    # maximum number of simultaneous processes desired
results = pprocess.Map()
parallel_function = results.manage(pprocess.MakeReusable(takeuptime))
tic=time.time()
[parallel_function(args) for args in list_of_args];  # Start computing things
parallel_results = results
print parallel_results[:samples+1]
pcpu = time.time()-tic
print "%f s for parallel computation." % (pcpu)

print

# Serial computation:
tic=time.time()
serial_results = [takeuptime(args) for args in list_of_args]
print serial_results
scpu = time.time()-tic
print "%f s for traditional, serial computation." % (scpu)
print
print 100*(1 - pcpu/scpu), "percent reduction in computing time via parallel"