Currently, C++ has support for atomic types, on which operations like add, sub, xor, etc can be done atomically, thereby avoiding data races. Having such a support will be very helpful in Python. For instance users won't have to use Locks for synchronising shared variables in case of multiprocessing. And, directly passing these atomic objects would be enough. These objects can have methods such as add, sub, etc to change the underlying variable. I believe this would make python much more easier for users in both trivial and complicated cases, without having to use lock. gcc also provides inbuilt support for some atomic operations. Documentation for the same is available at https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-5.2.0/gcc/_005f_005fsync-Builtins.html#g_... Moreover, gcc also has support for Memory Model aware atomic operations documented at https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-5.2.0/gcc/_005f_005fatomic-Builtins.html#...