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

[Steve Holden]

Paul Rubin wrote:
> Bryan Olson <fakeaddress at nowhere.org> writes:
>> I'm a fan of lock-free data structure and software transactional
>> memory, but I'm also a realist. Heck, I'm one of this group's
>> outspoken advocates of threaded architectures. Theoretical
>> breakthroughs will happen, but in real world of today, threads are
>> great but GIL-less Python is a loser.
> 
> GIL-less Python (i.e. Jython) already exists and beats CPython in
> performance a lot of the time, including on single processors.
> Whether the GIL can be eliminated from CPython without massive rework
> to every extension module ever written is a separate question, of
> course.  Jython can be viewed a proof of concept.

<nods>. I think probably the GIL will never be extracted successfully.

Also IronPython and PyPy (though the latter only in concept for now, I
believe). Even Guido admits that CPython doesn't necessarily represent
the dominant future strain ...

regards
 Steve
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