[Python-Dev] Fwd: Removal of GIL through refcounting removal. (original) (raw)

Eric Smith eric at trueblade.com
Sun Nov 2 21:34:14 CET 2008

Giovanni Bajo wrote:

[[ my 0.2: it would be a great loss if we lose reference-counting semantic (eg: objects deallocated as soon as they exit the scope). I would bargain that for a noticable speed increase of course, but my own experience with standard GCs from other languages has been less than stellar. ]]

And my $0.02:

I'd gladly trade deterministic destruction (due to reference counting or any other mechanism) for improved performance. I've often thought of creating a mode where destruction didn't happen right away with reference counting, just so I could find places where I'm relying on it. I consider it a bug to rely on reference counting to close files, for example. Maybe I should just run under Jython or IronPython everyone once in a while.

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