No, strings are immutable, despite the semantic gymnastics this article is performing.

Strings are immutable on the Python side. On the C size, however, PyUnicode_Resize is part of the PEP 384 Stable ABI and very specifically tries to resize the string in-place (it's normally intended for string-building).

If it is immutable from the client’s perspective, it’s immutable. Anything else is ill-defined.

The C api is “from a client’s perspective”. Any rando can build native modules with it.

I stand corrected.

In javascript I enforce immutability by hitting people over the head when they try to mutate something they're not supposed to.