Will Python 3.0 remove the global interpreter lock (GIL)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:07:48 -0700, TheFlyingDutchman wrote:

> On Sep 19, 8:51 am, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
> cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:09:26 -0700, TheFlyingDutchman wrote:
>> > How much faster/slower would Greg Stein's code be on today's
>> > processors versus CPython running on the processors of the late
>> > 1990's?
>>
>> I think a better question is, how much faster/slower would Stein's code
>> be on today's processors, versus CPython being hand-simulated in a
>> giant virtual machine made of clockwork?
>>
>> --
>> Steven.
> 
> Steven, You forgot this part:
> 
> "And if you decide to answer, please add a true/false response to this
> statement - "CPython in the late 1990's ran too slow"'.


No, I ignored it, because it doesn't have a true/false response. It's a 
malformed request. "Too slow" for what task? Compared to what 
alternative? Fast and slow are not absolute terms, they are relative. A 
sloth is "fast" compared to continental drift, but "slow" compared to the 
space shuttle.

BUT even if we all agreed that CPython was (or wasn't) "too slow" in the 
late 1990s, why on earth do you imagine that is important? It is no 
longer the late 1990s, it is now 2007, and we are not using Python 1.4 
any more.



-- 
Steven.