[Python-Dev] 2.4 news reaches interesting places

[holger krekel]

[Guido van Rossum Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 02:18:48PM -0800]
> I was pleasantly surprised to find a pointer to this article in a news
> digest that the ACM emails me regularly (ACM TechNews).
> 
> http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/28026-1.html
> 
> One thing that bugs me: the article says 3 or 4 times that Python is
> slow, each time with a refutation ("but it's so flexible", "but it's
> fast enough") but still, they sure seem to harp on the point. This is
> a PR issue that Python needs to fight -- any ideas?

What about doing a survey on c.l.py asking questions like:

    what do you find runs slowly in Python 
    that should run faster? 

    Could you help with some concrete - 
    preferably real life examples with speed problems?". 

If python-dev takes the time to seriously debate (and debunk :-) 
upcoming code and suggestions then such a process could 
be very useful for all sides and also for PR purposes.  

IMO the biggest PR problem is that python programmers themselves [*]
tend to say that Python is slow and it's interesting to find
out why they think so, document and discuss the "answers" if any. 

I am not saying that such questioning/discussion doesn't already 
happen sometimes. But doing a survey in a more systematic way
might let us find out how pervasive the perception of "Python
is too slow" really is.  Maybe it turns out that not many people 
have concrete problems to offer?  Anyway, this would probably also 
be interesting for the various alternative Python implementations 
currently in the works.  

just an idea, 

    holger


[*] For example, something i stumbled upon today: 

    http://unununium.org/articles/languages

    where it states (without providing any details!): 

    But what about that fast system? Python isn't a slow
    language; it just has a slow implementation. There are many
    projects underway to correct this situation: Psyco, PyPy,
    Starkiller, IronPython, and Parrotcode are among them. It's
    likely these projects will be nearing completion when the time
    comes for Unununium to look at optimizations.