Use threads or Tkinter event loop?

I'm trying to decide whether I need threads in my Tkinter application or
not. My app is a front end to a command-line tool; it feeds commands to
the command-line program, then reads its output and displays it in a
Tkinter text widget. Some of the commands are long-running and/or return
thousands of lines of output.

I initially thought I needed to use threading, because the GUI would
block when reading the output, even when I configured the blocking to be
non-blocking. I got threading to work, but it seemed a bit complicated.
So, I decided to try something simpler, by using the Tkinter event loop
to force the output to update/display.

it seems to work well enough. Here is my threaded code:

non-threaded:

def insertDump(self):
self.finkinstalled = os.popen('/sw/bin/fink list', 'r', os.O_NONBLOCK)
for line in self.finkinstalled:
self.t.insert(END, line)
self.update()
self.t.see(END)

And here is my non-threaded code (needs two functions to work)

def insertDump(self):
try:
data = self.dataQueue.get(block=False)
for line in data:
self.t.insert(END, line)
self.t.see(END)
self.update()
except:
print "error"
raise

def getDump(self):

self.file = os.popen('/sw/bin/fink list', 'r', os.O_NONBLOCK)
self.dataQueue.put(self.file)

This brings me to a design, as opposed to coding, question. The
non-threaded version seems to work just as well as the threaded one, in
terms of speed. Moreover, it is simpler to code and debug, because I
don't have to check to make sure the thread queue has data (I sometimes
get an 'Empty' error message when I first start the thread). Simply
using the Tk event loop (self.update) is also how I would have coded
this in Tcl.

So my question is this: under what circumstances in Python are threads
considered "best practice"? Am I wrong to use the Tk event loop instead
of threads?

Kevin Walzer wrote:

I'm trying to decide whether I need threads in my Tkinter application or
not. My app is a front end to a command-line tool; it feeds commands to
the command-line program, then reads its output and displays it in a
Tkinter text widget. Some of the commands are long-running and/or return
thousands of lines of output.

I initially thought I needed to use threading, because the GUI would
block when reading the output, even when I configured the blocking to be
non-blocking. I got threading to work, but it seemed a bit complicated.
So, I decided to try something simpler, by using the Tkinter event loop
to force the output to update/display.

it seems to work well enough. Here is my threaded code:

non-threaded:

def insertDump(self):
self.finkinstalled = os.popen('/sw/bin/fink list', 'r', os.O_NONBLOCK)
for line in self.finkinstalled:
self.t.insert(END, line)
self.update()
self.t.see(END)

And here is my non-threaded code (needs two functions to work)

def insertDump(self):
try:
data = self.dataQueue.get(block=False)
for line in data:
self.t.insert(END, line)
self.t.see(END)
self.update()

except:
print "error"
raise

def getDump(self):

self.file = os.popen('/sw/bin/fink list', 'r', os.O_NONBLOCK)
self.dataQueue.put(self.file)

This brings me to a design, as opposed to coding, question. The
non-threaded version seems to work just as well as the threaded one, in
terms of speed. Moreover, it is simpler to code and debug, because I
don't have to check to make sure the thread queue has data (I sometimes
get an 'Empty' error message when I first start the thread). Simply
using the Tk event loop (self.update) is also how I would have coded
this in Tcl.

So my question is this: under what circumstances in Python are threads
considered "best practice"? Am I wrong to use the Tk event loop instead
of threads?

D'oh, I got the code snippets mixed up:

non-threaded:

def insertDump(self):
self.finkinstalled = os.popen('/sw/bin/fink list', 'r', os.O_NONBLOCK)
for line in self.finkinstalled:
self.t.insert(END, line)
self.update()
self.t.see(END)

threaded:

def insertDump(self):
try:
data = self.dataQueue.get(block=False)
for line in data:
self.t.insert(END, line)
self.t.see(END)
self.update()

except:
print "error"
raise

def getDump(self):

self.file = os.popen('/sw/bin/fink list', 'r', os.O_NONBLOCK)
self.dataQueue.put(self.file)

Sorry!
--
Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevinhttp://www.codebykevin.com