Python vs Java garbage collection?

[Erik Max Francis]

Brian Quinlan wrote:

> Tim Peters has made that guarantee in the past as well.

Again, I never claimed it was likely or even plausible that the behavior
was change in CPython.

> What guarantees does the language make? I can't think of any...

Everything that the python.org documentation describes as the expected
behavior of Python and is not disclaimed with "Do not rely on this for
X," "This feature only available in Y," etc.

The documentation explicitly says that one should not rely on finalizers
being called in a timely manner or even at all in some cases.  So one
should not rely on it.  I'm really surprised at the level of furor over
such a basic point that even the documentation specifically mentions.

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