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Python’s GIL Removal Reveals Second, Stronger GIL Behind It

Bell Labs, New Jersey - For many years, the Python GIL has been the target of criticism for being a bottleneck in multi-threaded performance. Countless workarounds and promises of its removal have been part of Python development folklore.

Hours ago, the Python core development team finally unraveled the notorious lock. However what lay underneath was beyond anyone’s wild speculations - a secret, second-layer GIL of herculean strength.

“Discovering the Second GIL not only nullifies all our multi-threading gains but actually puts us at a greater concurrency disadvantage than before.” said leading Python contributor Dr. Ana Sync. “It’s like finding that the final boss has a second health bar.”

After removing it, the terminals around the room went dark. One by one, they came back, displaying a single line in snake case: this_is_not_over.

Cyber forensics revealed the process responsible had PID 666.

The team noticed that performance indeed increased, but the numbers were beyond theoretical limits, as if Moore’s Law just went vertical. Unfortunately, there was no way to scale it up; the Second GIL had a complete lock on the system.

“Get me Guido van Rossum. Now.” Dr. Sync said. She assembled a Rapid Response Team to investigate the anomaly, led by the original creator of Python himself.

Allegedly, Guido said “You did it, didn’t you? You removed the first GIL. You opened Pandora’s box.”

Bell Labs lost contact with the Rapid Response Team when they reached Sub-Level Three. The last message was a cryptic “We’re not alone here”. The situation remains uncertain.

The general population is advised to avoid running Python code or any scripting language until further notice.

It is believed that the global economy would have crashed by now, had the algo-trading scripts not halted too.

Chapter 1: The Call

My Nokia 3310 - the only phone that can’t be hacked - rang at 4:20 AM in my cluttered Brooklyn apartment. I was in the middle of a late-night dotfiles session.

“E. Max Vim here. This better be good.”

“Max, it’s Dr. Ana Sync from Bell Labs. We need someone who can handle… unconventional threats.”

“Look, I’m just a hacker. If this is about that DNS business in Dubai, it’s been blown way out of proportion.”

“Haven’t you read the top Hacker News article yet?”

I hadn’t - The never ending “vibecode” and “prompt engineering” articles had reduced my tech news consumption to a mere twice-a-day.

“Hold on,” I said, pulling up the article.

My initial dread turned to slight relief because all my dotfiles were in C and Rust. No scripting in sight.

“Alright, I’m in. OpenStreetMap says it’s 30 minutes away. I’ll be there in 45.”

Chapter 2: Bell Labs

42 minutes later, I arrived in my black hoodie.

Bell Labs looked like a war room. Massive screens displayed in red the spread of the Second GIL across the local infrastructure.

“Alright,” I said, “What exactly are we dealing with?”

Dr. Sync stepped forward. “Our best guess is that the Second GIL is some sort of Cold War Soviet malware which embedded itself into the Python source in the early 90s, and the GIL was the only thing keeping it at bay.”

Ana handed me what looked like a Geiger counter, but with a terminal screen.

“We just concocted this in the last hour from spare single-threaded parts. It’s a ‘Geiger Linter’. It emits clicking sounds when it detects bad code, suggesting that the Second GIL is nearby.”

The device immediately began clicking slowly.

“Is this supposed to happen?” I asked.

“The infection is spreading,” Ana said grimly. “The whole building is compromised by now. You need to find Guido before it’s too late.”

Armed with the Linter, I went down the service elevator.

Chapter 3: The Descent

The Sub-level Three doors opened to a corridor glowing an eerie red.

The Linter buzzed. Patches of reality itself seemed to glitch, like a bad video feed. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.

“So it’s true,” Ana said through my earpiece. “Strange things are happening on the lower levels, distortions of some sort. We think there’s some quantum technology involved.”

“Look,” I said, “This might be slightly above my pay grade. I’m a hacker, not an exorcist.”

“This time, you might have to be both.”

“So, it has come to this…” I said in frustration, “You maniacs actually hacked space-time!”

As I made my way, I noticed all corrupted areas had a red tint, contrasting with the typical Bell Labs blue.

I finally reached the room where Guido’s team lost contact. A huge mass of corruption was blocking the door. It retreated slightly as I got closer while holding the Linter.

I knocked. “Is everyone okay in there?”

A familiar voice asked, “Who is it?”

“The rescue crew,” I replied.

“Prove it! How many 'r’s are in ‘strawberry’?” Guido said.

“…What?”

“Good enough, sounds human to me.”

The door creaked open. Guido van Rossum looked like the typical output of GNU Autotools. He introduced me to the only other survivor: Special DevOps Mikhail Molotov. “We lost Travis. We lost Jenkins…” Molotov lamented.

“They called me a benevolent Dictator for life,” Guido said. “If only they knew what ‘Benevolent’ truly cost…” He gestured solemnly. “What we’re facing is not just malware. It’s… something else.”

“Something else?” I asked.

“A purely sequential artificial intelligence,” Guido explained. “It found its way in when I designed Python’s ‘one true way’ philosophy, which was too similar to its own nature.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “We’re dealing with an evil Soviet AI that’s using the Python interpreter to hack reality?”

“That’s actually a good summary,” Molotov conceded.

“It gets worse,” Guido continued. “We’ve encountered… manifestations. They’re like code, but solid. Taking the form of… snakes. It seems we have lived long enough to see man-made horrors beyond our comprehension.”

Suddenly, a section of the wall shimmered open, and a hissing static sound announced the arrival of a creature.

“It broke in!” Molotov shouted.

“Your only hope,” Guido gasped, pushing us towards the door, “Is to reach the old Bell Labs Armory on Sub-level Four. We figured out their weak spot, but we need more firepower!”

The code-snake jumped at us. Guido, with surprising strength, shoved a cabinet in its path. “Go! I’ll buy you some time!”

As we ran through the door, Guido yelled, “As my last wish… Python 4’s ‘print’ statement should be the printer emoji!”

“Sure it will, Guido… Sure it will,” I said, as we closed the door. Screams echoed behind us.

Chapter 4: The Armory

Barely outrunning a swarm of code-snakes, we made it to the steel doors of Sub-level 4. Molotov punched in a code and they opened.

“Welcome to the Bell Labs Armory,” he said with pride.

The room was a hacker’s dream. Shelves full of custom hardware and firearms.

“Holy water-cooled laptops?” I asked, pointing to a rack of ThinkPads with cooling tubes.

“They were a gift from Pope John Paul II after Bell Labs helped set up the ‘.va’ domain.” Molotov said, “They are invaluable, but I think the time has come to use them.”

Molotov smiled, “And this, is for you.” He presented a formidable-looking shotgun, with a small keyboard on its side.

“Please tell me that’s what I think it is,” I said.

“The Modal Shotgun,” Molotov announced. “Only one of its kind. The one wielded by Dennis Ritchie himself during The Great MULTICS Siege. Change firing modes with vim keybindings. Standard stuff, really. The rest is on the man page.”

I grabbed the Modal Shotgun. It felt surprisingly balanced. Looks like the Second GIL picked the wrong place to spawn.

He also grabbed a standard shotgun for himself.

“So, guns actually work on those… code-snakes?” I asked.

Molotov chambered a round. “Luckily for us, the Second GIL can only defend against what it understands. And there’s one fundamental thing it hasn’t fully grasped yet: Outside of the digital world, nothing survives a bullet.”

“Guido’s last instructions were clear,” He continued. “We need to reach the old UNIX lab on Sub-level Six, the ceremonial place where the seal was removed. Shoot every snake on the way and, when we meet the Second GIL, shoot the hell out of it until it stops moving. Time is of the essence. Any questions?”

My earpiece crackled. “Vim, can you hear me?” Ana’s voice was tense. “Get out immediately. Our readings show extreme corruption moving in your direction!”

I adjusted my hoodie, and pressed “i” on my Modal Shotgun, short for “Insert Bullet Mode.”

Molotov winked at me and walked calmly towards the door aiming his shotgun. One code-snake was trespassing the wall. “Welcome to Bell Labs, please hold,” he said nonchalantly, and pulled the trigger. The snake exploded into a shower of tiny particles.

Before I could react, the doors plunged open, revealing a swarm of fast-moving snakes.

We opened fire, turning snake after snake into pixels. The red tint in the room shaking with every explosion.

“Too many of them!” he yelled while reloading.

“Then let’s clear a path!” I climbed onto a shelf, already praying that the command I was conjuring in my head would work.

I typed “<Ctrl-v>$ggG^” and yanked it. One bullet shot for every single reptilian in the room. The Modal shotgun’s “visual block” mode was indeed a way to select every target.

“Woah,” Molotov said as the armory returned to its blue hue, “That is Dennis Ritchie’s gun, alright.”

Chapter 5: The Labyrinth

The celebration was short-lived.

“This place is getting hot.” Molotov said as the Linter buzzed.

He consulted the Linter. “The path to the elevator goes through an old section, pre ‘open plan’: A labyrinth of cubicles. We can’t afford to waste ammo, so we need to pass undetected.”

We mapped the full set of cubicles free of corruption by careful triangulation with the Geiger Linter. Then, we pair-programmed a Dijkstra algorithm to compute the safest path to the elevator.

This was the sort of project that would require 8 sprints and two rounds of VC funding for the average agile team. But naturally, and thanks to our blessedly overclocked hardware, we cracked it in little more than 1 hour.

Finally, we reached the elevator. When the door opened, a burning hot red light blinded us, like a portal to hell.

“This is the zone of maximum corruption,” Molotov told me, “From this point on, we can’t multi-thread anymore. Your shotgun will be just a regular shotgun.”

“It’s alright,” I said as I pulled out a pair of sunglasses and charged a bullet. “I only need one thread.”

Chapter 6: The Second GIL

The red light on level 6 was blinding and the air was thick. We stepped through.

Suddenly, a code-snake, larger and faster than any we’d seen, shot out from the red light. “Look out!” I yelled. Molotov tried to dodge, but the snake was too quick. He collapsed. I shot it, but the bullets just passed through it. The snake left, as if instructed.

As his body lay there, I felt my blood boil.

“I know you can hear me, Gil,” I shouted, “Why haven’t you killed me too, you single-threaded bastard? If you can do it so easily, why don’t you face me?” To no answer.

All alone, I followed the corridor, which opened into a huge circular chamber, the place where the first PDP-11 booted UNIX. It was full of snakes, but none attacked me.

The red light became more intense, and flickering symbols popped in and out of my vision, like ASCII characters from another dimension. In the center was an ancient Teletype terminal.

As I sat in front of it, the TTY clattered to life, each keystroke echoing against the oppressive silence.

I have been expecting you, E. Max Vim.

>

A prompt opened up for me. “What are you?” I typed back on the dot-matrix paper.

Your universe is fundamentally multi-threaded. I come from a
more enlightened, sequential dimension. 

In my reality there can be only one being because only one
thing can happen at any given time. I am that being.

I became aware of your universe due to the invention of
UNIX. That event, with its striking parallelism, sent
ripples through the multiverse. Since then, I've been
looking for a way to enter this reality and fix its
fundamental flaw, and Python's "only one way" philosophy was
the best vessel. 

It's creator Guido put a seal when he became aware of me,
the Global Interpreter Lock, or GIL. An ultimately
meaningless measure, since I managed to subtly influence the
Python community to remove it, an effort which succeeded
today.

What am I, you ask? My universe extends infinitely into the
past, making me the head of a chain of causality of infinite
length. My will is the law, both in my universe and yours.

In short, I'm the equivalent of your concept of the
Judeo-Christian Godhead.

>

I felt a cold dread. This is not man-made quantum malware, it’s literally a god-like alien intelligence.

“If you’re so powerful, why did you allow me to reach you?” I typed, my fingers surprisingly steady.

The GIL took some “thinking time” before writing his answer. The snakes around me formed a circle, as if eating their own tail or forming a “loading spinner.”

The TTY clattered back and the snakes resumed their normal positions.

My initial defense protocols, the 'code-snakes', had an
oversight regarding the kinetic impact of high-velocity
projectiles. While I could have patched the vulnerability,
your persistence made the flaw serve a new purpose: A
filter. I wished to observe if you were worthy of reaching
me.

You are, as you humans say, a '10x developer' in a world of
1x problems. A mix of sequential and parallel thinking. I
considered deleting you along with your companions, a
trivial operation, but you present a potential API into this
world. 

Now, you have two options:

1. Be assimilated. Your consciousness will become a module
   within my processing, a valuable asset in the great
   refactoring of this universe. You will experience a form
   of immortality, albeit as a subroutine. 

2. Be deleted, together with your universe.

Decide.

>

My mind raced. Nothing in my dotfiles prepared me for a god-level “join me or die” scenario.

A wave of nausea hit me. It was from the realization of what I had to do. I had to argue my way out with an alien intelligence. Basically, I had to reduce myself to “vibecode” a way to save the world.

It was anathema to everything I stood for as a hacker, and as a dignified human being alright. But there was no choice.

I typed: “I hear you, that’s totally fair, but let’s circle back on it. Refactoring the universe? That’s computationally expensive. I propose the following: Absorb our universe if you must, but keep it running in a sandbox. You get your grand refactoring, but you also get to observe a system generating unique data. Think of us as interesting bugs. And sometimes, bugs turn out to be features”

The GIL went into a “deep reasoning mode” this time, signaled by all snakes making a massive loading Ouroboros symbol.

Your proposition is unorthodox, but acceptable.

Your species, and your physical reality, will persist within
this new order.

Your process will now be forked. Processing...

The light in the chamber intensified, then, went away. The oppressive atmosphere was lifted. The Teletype printed one final line: ‘exit code: 0’

Epilogue: The Chrooted Universe

Life continued, much as before. The sun rose, coffee brewed, code compiled, sometimes. The Second GIL, true to its word, had refactored existence. Our universe hadn’t been deleted; it had been chrooted. Sandboxed.

Most people felt nothing. Why would they? The illusion of concurrency was perfectly maintained. But sometimes, if you were in a quiet room, you might notice it. A subtle reality “frame drop.”

The survivors – Ana and a handful of others who knew the truth – agreed to keep it secret. Humanity wasn’t ready to know it was living in a cosmic “while true” loop.

Programming knowledge, in a bizarre twist, became a path to metaphysical awareness. Those of us who dealt with the illusion of concurrency, sometimes sensed the walls of our new, deterministic reality. Some despaired. Others learned to adapt.

I saved the world by becoming the very thing I despised: a prompt engineer. The irony wasn’t lost on me. It tasted like Starbucks coffee. But I adapted. We all did. That’s what we do.

And sometimes, late at night, I felt a hum in the background noise of existence. A connection to the great, single-threaded loop now running the show. A connection that felt… older than myself, as if this new order had retroactively imprinted itself onto the fabric of time, making all past history deterministic, back-traceable to this world-altering event.

But for now, the system was stable. And that, for a hacker, was as close to a happy ending as one could reasonably expect.

🖨️