As long as you have the build infrastructure to support patched versions of Python, and can run multiple ones, I don't see the problem.
When you're running at scale like Instagram, it's inevitable that you need to do stuff like this. You're just pushing the limits of what open source software has been tested for.
I think this solution is a hack in the good sense... in particular because you are taking something away rather than adding crap on top, which is the typical solution. I wouldn't be as impressed if they came up with a fancy new GC that took 18 months to write and only worked for their workload. That would be the wrong way of thinking about the problem.
When you're running at scale like Instagram, it's inevitable that you need to do stuff like this. You're just pushing the limits of what open source software has been tested for.
I think this solution is a hack in the good sense... in particular because you are taking something away rather than adding crap on top, which is the typical solution. I wouldn't be as impressed if they came up with a fancy new GC that took 18 months to write and only worked for their workload. That would be the wrong way of thinking about the problem.