Can you help me understand the Global Interpreter Lock in Python

Question

Can someone explain the concept of the global interpreter lock and why it is considered to be an issue

Answer 1

Suppose you have multiple threads which don't really touch each other's data. Those should execute as independently as possible. If you have a "global lock" which you need to acquire in order to (say) call a function, that can end up as a bottleneck. You can wind up not getting much benefit from having multiple threads in the first place.

To put it into a real world analogy: imagine 100 developers working at a company with only a single coffee mug. Most of the developers would spend their time waiting for coffee instead of coding.

None of this is Python-specific - I don't know the details of what Python needed a GIL for in the first place. However, hopefully it's given you a better idea of the general concept.