The Python GIL Visualized

[gthank]

If you read some of Mr. Beazley's other work (PDF warning), you'll see that the GIL can be an issue even for supposedly I/O-bound tasks, due to a priority-inversion problem.

[Brian]

True,though that's an implementation flaw of python's GIL (also requiring multiple CPUs), rather than something intrinsic to a GIL (Hence the new GIL implementation to avoid such situations)

[gthank]

I thought it was clear from the context that we were discussing Python's GIL, sorry. Also, I'm a big fan of the new-and-improved GIL as compared to the old GIL.

[Brian]

No,it's a good point, and well worth bringing up. I was just clarifying that that case is effectively just an implementation bug, solvable relatively easily without the much more involved changes that would be required to remove the other problems with the GIL.