from threading import Thread
from Queue import Queue
import string

def do_work(item):
    print(item)

def worker(q):
    while True:
        item = q.get()
        do_work(item)
        q.task_done()

if __name__ == u"__main__":
    queue = Queue()

    # start thread pool
    for _ in xrange(10):
        thread = Thread(target=worker, args=(queue,))

        # This works as expected on Jython and CPython
        # thread.setDaemon(True)

        # This only works as expected on CPython. On
        # Jython it gets past the `queue.join()` line,
        # then hangs
        thread.daemon = True

        thread.start()

    for letter in string.letters:
        queue.put(letter)

    queue.join()