GIL removal and the Faster CPython project [LWN.net]
https://lwn.net/Articles/939981/
·
The Python global interpreter lock (GIL) has long been a barrier to
increasing the performance of programs by using multiple threads—the GIL
serializes access to the interpreter's virtual machine such that only one thread
can be executing Python code at any given time. There are other mechanisms
to provide
concurrency for the language, but the specter of the GIL—and its reality as
well—have often been cited as a major negative for Python. Back in October
2021, Sam Gross introduced
a proof-of-concept, no-GIL version of the
language. It was met with a lot of excitement at the time, but
seemed to languish to a certain extent for more than a year; now, the Python
Steering
Council has announced its intent to accept the
no-GIL feature. It will still be some time before it lands in a
released Python version—and there is the possibility that it all has to be
rolled back at some point—but there are several companies backing the
effort, which gives it all a good chance to succeed.