I agree: it's good to have and to express opinions. But as you point out there is a real difference between "wouldn't it be cool if..." and "you really should be working on this problem of mine" instead of doing whatever it is you currently think is more important.
I don't even really know who is right about a Python GIL. When working with C, I have a strong preference for separate processes and mmaps. When working with Perl (which I use a lot more than Python), I've never really felt much urge to use threading. Aesthetically, although I haven't really used it, I think Erlang's message passing approach is much better than native threads. But maybe Gustavo's right --- better threading would indeed allow lots of cool things to be done.
That aside, what saddens me about the exchange between Gustavo and Brett is the misconnect. It strikes me as obvious that the key for Gustavo here is to show that it's in Brett's self-interest to improve threading in Python. I didn't see any attempt of this. Instead, he seems to be taking exactly the tack Brett just finished saying was ruinous to his morale.
Except Gustavo is wrong in that he has to convince Brett that free threading is a Good Thing. Part of Brett's post was we already know that - but we're not willing to sacrifice backwards compatibility for it, and we do not have/have not thought of any good solutions to fix it.
So having people say "this sucks you guys should fix it" 100x a day, with increasing levels of "you owe me" or "you suck" tone in their voices is depressing and frustrating.
I don't disagree with you, but that's just part of working on a popular project. There are plenty of armchair language designers who could of course do everything better than you.
Oh, I agree with you! But I think we both know that while we all end up growing thick skins (or quitting) it can still get under your nails and make you sad sometimes.
Especially when you've been at it awhile. Guido must have skin like a bloody rhinoceros.
I don't even really know who is right about a Python GIL. When working with C, I have a strong preference for separate processes and mmaps. When working with Perl (which I use a lot more than Python), I've never really felt much urge to use threading. Aesthetically, although I haven't really used it, I think Erlang's message passing approach is much better than native threads. But maybe Gustavo's right --- better threading would indeed allow lots of cool things to be done.
That aside, what saddens me about the exchange between Gustavo and Brett is the misconnect. It strikes me as obvious that the key for Gustavo here is to show that it's in Brett's self-interest to improve threading in Python. I didn't see any attempt of this. Instead, he seems to be taking exactly the tack Brett just finished saying was ruinous to his morale.