FreeThreading Python?

[Erno Kuusela]

In article <mailman.980006458.21501.python-list at python.org>, Steve
Spicklemire <steve at spvi.com> writes:

| Now that multiprocessor machines are becoming much more commonplace,
| is there any effort aimed at updating these patches, or 'fixing' the
| GIL thingy so that mere mortals might be able to write pure python
| code that can totally swamp 6 processors at the same time? ;-)

i don't know if there's an effort like that. fixing python so that it
will totally swamp 6 cpus simultaneously != running faster
on 6 cpus than one.

iirc one of the issues is python's reference counting, which would
require a lock to be acquired (or a atomic inc/dec instruction issued)
each time a reference count is manipulated. which happens not at
all seldom in python.

  -- erno