The "Faster Python" team are doing a fantastic job, it's incredible to see the progress they are making.
However, there is also a bit of a struggle going on between them and the project to remove the GIL (global interpreter lock) from CPython. There is going to be a performance impact on single threaded code if the "no GIL" project is merged, something in the region of 10%. It seems that the faster Python devs are pushing back against that as it impacts their own goals. Their argument is that the "sub interpreters" they are adding (each with its own GIL) will fulfil the same use cases of multithreaded code without a GIL, but they still have the overhead of encoding and passing data in the same way you have to with sub processors.
There is also the argument that it could "divide the community" as some C extensions may not be ported to the new ABI that the no GIL project will result in. However again I'm unconvinced by that, the Python community has been through worse (Python 3) and even asyncIO completely divides the community now.
It's somewhat unfortunate that this internal battle is happening, both projects are incredible and will push the language forward.
Once the GIL has been removed it opens us all sorts of interesting opportunities for new concurrency APIs that could enable making concurrent code much easer to write.
My observation is that the Faster Python team are better placed politicly, they have GVR on the team, whereas No GIL is being proposed by an "outsider". It just smells a little of NIH syndrome.
However, there is also a bit of a struggle going on between them and the project to remove the GIL (global interpreter lock) from CPython. There is going to be a performance impact on single threaded code if the "no GIL" project is merged, something in the region of 10%. It seems that the faster Python devs are pushing back against that as it impacts their own goals. Their argument is that the "sub interpreters" they are adding (each with its own GIL) will fulfil the same use cases of multithreaded code without a GIL, but they still have the overhead of encoding and passing data in the same way you have to with sub processors.
There is also the argument that it could "divide the community" as some C extensions may not be ported to the new ABI that the no GIL project will result in. However again I'm unconvinced by that, the Python community has been through worse (Python 3) and even asyncIO completely divides the community now.
It's somewhat unfortunate that this internal battle is happening, both projects are incredible and will push the language forward.
Once the GIL has been removed it opens us all sorts of interesting opportunities for new concurrency APIs that could enable making concurrent code much easer to write.
My observation is that the Faster Python team are better placed politicly, they have GVR on the team, whereas No GIL is being proposed by an "outsider". It just smells a little of NIH syndrome.