Python has had async for 10 years – why isn't it more popular?
8 days ago
- #Async
- #Python
- #Concurrency
- Python 3's transition from Python 2 initially divided the community but ultimately did not.
- Python 3.5 introduced async and await keywords for coroutines, a significant feature for concurrency.
- Python 3.14 is upcoming with new features focused on concurrency and parallelism.
- Async is most beneficial for I/O-bound tasks, particularly in web development, but has limited use in CPU-bound tasks.
- Popular Python web frameworks like FastAPI, Django, and Flask have varying levels of async support.
- Async programming in Python can be unintuitive and error-prone, especially for developers new to network programming.
- The Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) in Python limits the effectiveness of threading and async for CPU-bound tasks.
- Python 3.13 introduced an experimental free-threaded build, with improvements expected in Python 3.14.
- Maintaining both synchronous and asynchronous APIs in Python libraries is challenging and increases maintenance overhead.
- FastAPI's popularity as an async-first web framework highlights the success of async in specific use cases like HTTP and network IO.