Django, sleep() pauses all processes, but only if no GET parameter?

Using Django (hosted by Webfaction), I have the following code

import time
def my_function(request):
    time.sleep(10)
    return HttpResponse("Done")

This is executed via Django when I go to my url, www.mysite.com

I enter the url twice, immediately after each other. The way I see it, both of these should finish after 10 seconds. However, the second call waits for the first one and finishes after 20 seconds.

If, however, I enter some dummy GET parameter, www.mysite.com?dummy=1 and www.mysite.com?dummy=2 then they both finish after 10 seconds. So it is possible for both of them to run simultaneously.

It's as though the scope of sleep() is somehow global?? Maybe entering a parameter makes them run as different processes instead of the same???

It is hosted by Webfaction. httpd.conf has:

KeepAlive Off
Listen 30961
MaxSpareThreads 3
MinSpareThreads 1
ServerLimit 1
SetEnvIf X-Forwarded-SSL on HTTPS=1
ThreadsPerChild 5

I do need to be able to use sleep() and trust that it isn't stopping everything. So, what's up and how to fix it?

Edit: Webfaction runs this using Apache.

Solution

As Gjordis pointed out, sleep will pause the current thread. I have looked at Webfaction and it looks like their are using WSGI for running the serving instance of Django. This means, every time a request comes in, Apache will look at how many worker processes (that are processes that each run a instance of Django) are currently running. If there are none/to view it will spawn additonally workers and hand the requests to them.

Here is what I think is happening in you situation:

first GET request for resource A comes in. Apache uses a running worker (or starts a new one)
the worker sleeps 10 seconds
during this, a new request for resource A comes in. Apache sees it is requesting the same resource and sends it to the same worker as for request A. I guess the assumption here is that a worker that recently processes a request for a specific resource it is more likely that the worker has some information cached/preprocessed/whatever so it can handle this request faster
this results in a 20 second block since there is only one worker that waits 2 times 10 seconds

This behavior makes complete sense 99% of the time so it's logical to do this by default.

However, if you change the requested resource for the second request (by adding GET parameter) Apache will assume that this is a different resource and will start another worker (since the first one is already "busy" (Apache can not know that you are not doing any hard work). Since there are now two worker, both waiting 10 seconds the total time goes down to 10 seconds.

Additionally I assume that something is **wrong** with your design. There are almost no cases which I can think of where it would be sensible to not respond to a HTTP request as fast as you can. After all, you want to serve as many requests as possible in the shortest amount of time, so sleeping 10 seconds is the most counterproductive thing you can do. I would recommend the you create a new question and state what you actual goal is that you are trying to achieve. I'm pretty sure there is a more sensible solution to this!