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Are Python free-threaded ready? Looking at where free-threaded Python fails
This talk reviews Python’s free-threading initiative, detailing its technical differences, current status, and library compatibility. It assesses the trade-offs between improved multithreaded performance and increased thread safety challenges, provides profiling insights, and discusses community roles in compatibility, helping attendees evaluate free-threaded Python’s readiness and relevance for their projects.
Cheuk Ting HoJetBrains
Free-threaded Python aims to significantly improve performance, allowing multiple native threads to execute Python bytecode concurrently. In this talk, we will explore the current state of Python's free-threading initiative and assess its practical readiness for widespread adoption.
We begin by exploring the background of free-threaded Python, summarising its origins, current status, and the technical differences distinguishing it from standard Python implementations. A key focus will be examining the compatibility landscape, specifically investigating how many popular third-party libraries are currently prepared for free-threading. We will distinguish between generic pure Python wheels and explicitly free-threaded wheels and I’ll explain how the community can contribute to compatibility verification.
We then critically discuss free-threaded Python's necessity, weighing the disadvantage of increased thread safety concerns (and verification methods) against the promised advantage of speed (including multithreaded profiling).Will free-threaded Python become a critical future direction for the language? How can you contribute? If and how specific projects can immediately benefit from it? Let’s find out together!
We begin by exploring the background of free-threaded Python, summarising its origins, current status, and the technical differences distinguishing it from standard Python implementations. A key focus will be examining the compatibility landscape, specifically investigating how many popular third-party libraries are currently prepared for free-threading. We will distinguish between generic pure Python wheels and explicitly free-threaded wheels and I’ll explain how the community can contribute to compatibility verification.
We then critically discuss free-threaded Python's necessity, weighing the disadvantage of increased thread safety concerns (and verification methods) against the promised advantage of speed (including multithreaded profiling).Will free-threaded Python become a critical future direction for the language? How can you contribute? If and how specific projects can immediately benefit from it? Let’s find out together!
Cheuk Ting Ho
After having a career as a Data Scientist and Developer Advocate, Cheuk dedicated her work to the open-source community. Currently, she is working as a developer advocate for JetBrains. She has co-founded Humble Data, a beginner Python workshop that has been happening around the world. Cheuk also started and hosted a Python podcast, PyPodCats, which highlights the achievements of underrepresented members in the community. She has served the EuroPython Society board for two years and is now a fellow and director of the Python Software Foundation.
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