The Global Interpreter Lock (GIL)
Published in
3 min readMay 2, 2024
The Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) is a mechanism used in the reference implementation of Python (CPython). It ensures that only one thread executes Python bytecode at a time. This lock is necessary because CPython’s memory management is not thread-safe.
Why the GIL Exists
Python uses reference counting for memory management, which is not inherently thread-safe due to…