Why GIL? (was Re: what's the point of rpython?)

[Carl Banks]

On Jan 23, 7:19 pm, Paul Rubin <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
> Bryan Olson <fakeaddr... at nowhere.org> writes:
> > > BTW, class instances are usually immutable and thus don't require a
> > > mutex in the system I described.
> > Then you are describing a language radically different from Python.
>
> That one threw me for a minute too, but I think the idea is that the
> class instance itself is immutable, while its slots (specifically the
> attribute dictionary) point to mutable objects.

Correct, and, getting back to the point, an instance itself would not
require a mutex.  The dict would need it, of course.

It's customary to gloss over this technicality for convenience's sake
in most discussions, but it matters in this case.


Carl Banks