[Python-ideas] PEP 554: Stdlib Module to Support Multiple Interpreters in Python Code

[Nick Coghlan]

On 11 September 2017 at 18:02, Koos Zevenhoven <k7hoven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 8:32 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The line between it and the "CPython Runtime" is fuzzy for both
>> practical and historical reasons, but the regular Python CLI will
>> always have a "first created, last destroyed" main interpreter, simply
>> because we don't really gain anything significant from eliminating it
>> as a concept.
>
> I fear that emphasizing the main interpreter will lead to all kinds of
> libraries/programs that somehow unnecessarily rely on some or all tasks
> being performed in the main interpreter. Then you'll have a hard time
> running two of them in parallel in the same process, because you don't have
> two main interpreters.

You don't need to fear this scenario, since it's a description of the
status quo (and it's the primary source of overstated claims about
subinterpreters being "fundamentally broken").

So no, not everything will be subinterpreter-friendly, just as not
everything in Python is thread-safe, and not everything is portable
across platforms. That's OK - it just means we'll aim to make as many
things as possible implicitly subinterpreter-friendly, and for
everything else, we'll aim to minimise the adjustments needed to
*make* things subinterpreter friendly.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia