[Idea about extending variable-length structures at the front instead of at the back] The problem with applying this idea to Python objects, IMO, is that Python requires the object header to be at the start. Anything operating on a PyObject * expects that it can use the Py_INCREF and Py_DECREF macros, and those expect the refcount to be the first field and the type pointer to be the second. So our objects are already constrained at the front. Also, the GC implementation already uses thistrick: it adds three fields in front of the structure. But then it assumes you can use fixed address calculations to translate between the object and the GC header. Adding something in front of the GC header would be too painful. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)