CPython, the standard Python interpreter, is set to be released in October. Significant speed enhancements will be included, as well as support for operating inside the browser.
The first Python language summit since 2019 was held in Salt Lake City last week. The language’s development team unveiled several revisions for the next edition of the language, as well as its near future, at the event. The Reg has already covered certain forthcoming upgrades, and as they approach, more specifics, as well as what’s coming in Python 3.12, are becoming obvious.
There are other Python versions available, including interpreters for the JVM and.NET CLR, as well as compilers, but the CPython interpreter is the language’s main implementation. This has certain well-known drawbacks, including the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL), which stops the language from fully using multicore machines.
Multiple interpreters can be present in a single process for a long time, but they interfere with one another since they all share the same GIL. Eric Snow’s solution is the per-interpreter GIL, which assigns a GIL to each interpreter.
A more comprehensive answer would be to eliminate the GIL. Larry Hastings’ GILectomy was an earlier attempt that failed, but a second one has already gone further and may succeed. Meta developer Sam Gross is working on the new functionality, which is simply called nog.
This isn’t the first time the Facebook founder has pushed for faster speeds. Instagram, which is owned by Meta, is said to employ Python extensively and operates on an internal version dubbed Cinder, however, this is just for internal usage and not for public consumption. The new initiative should have a broader application.
Another industrial behemoth may have played a role in these shifts. Guido van Rossum, the Python Benevolent Dictator For Life, retired in 2018, but he later changed his mind and returned to work – at Microsoft.
The HotPy project is moving on, thanks to Microsoft funding Van Rossum and Mark Shannon’s salaries, as well as funding from Bloomberg and others. In benchmarks, the beta of CPython 3.11 is around 25% faster than the previous version.
