Your Python program can stop entirely for several seconds. This is caused by the garbage collector cleaning up the memory. Importantly, it can happen even if you are not allocating and deallocating a lot of memory. And the pause is not caused by the cleaning up of the memory. All that is required is that your program has, at some point, allocated lots of objects. Even if these objects are retained, the problem will remain. Python does offer you the tools to deal with the problem, and your favorite AI will tell you all about it if you ask.

Daniel Lemire, "How bad can Python stop-the-world pauses get?," in Daniel Lemire's blog, February 15, 2026, https://lemire.me/blog/2026/02/15/how-bad-can-python-stop-the-world-pauses-get/.

"Where we're going, we don't need Python." 😂

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