Python Set for World Domination?
Published at 18:03 on 22 October 2023
Python is already sitting at the top of the TIOBE Index of most popular programming languages, and has been for some time. And no wonder: it’s one of the best ones out there.
One big thing that stops it from being close to the best is that it has difficulty walking and chewing gum at the same time. In one project, this caused me no small amount of pain. It’s part of the reason I have used the Java virtual machine (usually via Kotlin, which is a more modern language than Java) on some of my projects.
Over the years, there have been numerous proposals to remove the global interpreter lock (GIL) from Python. These have generally gone nowhere, with the exception of the existence of Python versions that target the Java virtual machine and the .NET common language runtime*. There are a number of valid reasons for this.
But now, there is a very serious proposal to remove the GIL from the reference implementation, and the Python Steering Committee has indicated they will almost certainly accept it.
Once this happens, expect Python’s dominance to increase further.
* Alas, these implementations tend to lag (sometimes seriously) behind the reference implementation, plus they are not compatible with many of the third-party Python libraries out there. (The latter issue is also why it has been so difficult to remove the GIL, as doing so in ways that are both a) not ruinously inefficient and b) compatible with existing libraries has proven exceptionally difficult.)