Recent Optimizations in Python's Reference Counting

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?

mburns · 2 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...

Bjartr · 2 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 · 2 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.

f311a · 2 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.