[Python-Dev] Re: marking shared-ness

[Tim Peters]

[Greg Stein]
> ...
> Many people have asked for free-threading, and the number of inquiries
> that I receive have grown over time. (nobody asked in 1996 when I first
> published my patches; I get a query every couple months now)

Huh!  That means people ask me about it more often than they ask you <wink>.

I'll add, though, that you have to dig into the inquiry:  almost everyone
who asks me is running on a uniprocessor machine, and are really after one
of two other things:

1. They expect threaded stuff to run faster if free-threaded.  "Why?" is
   a question I can't answer <0.5 wink>.

2. Dealing with the global lock drives them insane, especially when trying
   to call back into Python from a "foreign" C thread.

#2 may be fixable via less radical means (like a streamlined procedure
enabled by some relatively minor core interpreter changes, and clearer
docs).

I'm still a fan of free-threading!  It's just one of those things that may
yield a "well, ya, that's what I asked for, but turns out it's not what I
*wanted*" outcome as often as not.

enthusiastically y'rs  - tim