# Purpose of lock in addprocs

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/purpose-of-lock-in-addprocs/564>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [November 25, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/purpose-of-lock-in-addprocs/564 "2016-11-25T16:07:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pearcemc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pearcemc/32/3109_2.png) [@pearcemc](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pearcemc)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/purpose-of-lock-in-addprocs/564/1 "2016-11-25T16:07:05Z")

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Hello

I’d like to understand the purpose of the[lock in `addprocs`](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/base/multi.jl#L1682).

I ask because the slurm scheduler seems to disadvantage 1 request for n nodes vs n requests for 1 node. I am guessing the lock stops me from making multiple requests in parallel to slurm via `addprocs` (or at least, something is and this looks like the culprit).

If I take the lock out, will Bad Things happen?