(I've added back python-ideas, because I think that is still the appropriate forum.)

.... A new suite type - the ``transaction`` will be added to the language. The suite will have the semantics discussed above: modifying an object in the suite will trigger creation of a thread-local shallow copy to be used in the Transaction. Further modifications of the original will cause all existing copies to be discarded and the transaction to be restarted. ...

How will you know that an object has been modified? The only ways I can think of are (1) Timestamp every object -- or at least every mutable object -- and hope that everybody agrees on which modifications should count. (2) Make two copies of every object you're using in the suite; at the end, compare one of them to both the original and the one you were operating on. With this solution, you can decide for youself what counts as a modification, but it still isn't straightforward; I would consider changing a value to be changing a dict, even though nothing in the item (header) itself changed. -jJ