Is this a bug? Python intermittently stops dead for seconds

[Fredrik Lundh]

Roel Schroeven wrote:

> AFAIK Python always does reference counting, and the garbage collector 
> is used only for more difficult cases. As the gc module docs say:
> "Since the collector supplements the reference counting already used in 
> Python, you can disable the collector if you are sure your program does 
> not create reference cycles."
> 
> I don't know if that's only true for CPython or also for the other 
> implementations.

CPython always uses reference counting, but that's not guaranteed by the 
language specification:

   "Objects are never explicitly destroyed; however, when they become
   unreachable they may be garbage-collected. An implementation is
   allowed to postpone garbage collection or omit it altogether -- it
   is a matter of implementation quality how garbage collection is
   implemented, as long as no objects are collected that are still
   reachable."

   http://pyref.infogami.com/objects

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