Question: How to determine if a python thread has been started? There is a method `is_alive()` but this is true **before** and **while** a thread is running.

Answer: 
You can look at the **ident** field of the **Thread** instance. The [Python 2.7 documentation for Threading](http://docs.python.org/2/library/threading.html#threading.Thread) describes **ident** as 

> 
> The ‘thread identifier’ of this thread or None if the thread has not
>  been started.
> 
> 
>
You could have the thread function set a boolean flag on startup, and then check that flag.