threading support in python

[Daniel Dittmar]

km wrote:
> Is there any PEP to introduce true threading features into python's
> next version as in java? i mean without having GIL.
> when compared to other languages, python is fun to code but i feel its
> is lacking behind in threading

Some of the technical problems:

- probably breaks compatibility of extensions at the source level in a 
big way, although this might be handled by SWIG, boost and other code 
generators
- reference counting will have to be synchronized, which means that 
Python will become slower
- removing reference counting and relying on garbage collection alone 
will break many Python applications (because they rely on files being 
closed at end of scope etc.)

Daniel