The future of Python immutability

[Stefan Behnel]

John Nagle wrote:
>     With this mechanism, multi-thread programs with shared data
> structures can be written with little or no explicit locking by
> the programmer.  If the restrictions are made a bit stricter,
> strict enough that threads cannot share mutable unsynchronized data,
> removal of the "global interpreter lock" is potentially possible.
> This is a route to improved performance on modern multi-core CPUs.

The main problem with this is that the existing data structures are, well,
there. You can't replace them without breaking all existing Python code,
i.e. without basically inventing a new language. If that's required for
removing the GIL, I doubt that it will ever be done.

Stefan