Recent Optimizations in Python's Reference Counting

https://rushter.com/blog/python-refcount/

by f311a • 7 months ago

25 7 7 months ago

zahlman• 7 months ago

This seems like a pretty big deal that should have gotten more attention in the 3.14 release. It's fairly buried in the "What's New" document, but apparently the original issue is at https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/130704 and corresponding PR https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/130708 .

Waterluvian• 7 months ago

Has improving CPython performance become a huge focus in just the past five years or so, or is that just a perception issue on my end?

Bjartr2• 7 months ago

Because of how much of a cornerstone python generally has been in AI circles, performance improvements have gotten a lot more attention in the past few years.

gizmo686• 6 months ago

Is python performance actually relevant to AI use cases? It's my understanding that all of the actual number crunching is done with native code.

mburns• 6 months ago

A developer wrote a paper in 2020 about how to make Python substantially (5x) faster.

Microsoft then funded a 'Fast CPython' team that included Guido, to realize that goal. They disbanded the team in June.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/python/python-311-faster-cpyt...

f311a• 6 months ago

Guido gave up the idea of keeping CPython interpreter simple. It's now a complex beast with JIT and a lot of small optimizations.

Recent Optimizations in Python's Reference Counting

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