[Python-Dev] C API for gc.enable() and gc.disable()

[Kevin Jacobs <jacobs@bioinformed.com>]

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 4:33 AM, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de>
wrote:

> > I don't think expecting people to tweak gc parameters when they witness
> > performance problems is reasonable.
>
> What follows from that? To me, the natural conclusion is "people who
> witness performance problems just need to despair, or accept them, as
> they can't do anything about it", however, I don't think this is the
> conclusion that you had in mind.
>

I can say with complete certainty that of the 20+ programmers I've had
working for me, many who have used Python for 3+ years, not a single one
would think to question the garbage collector if they observed the kind of
quadratic time complexity I've demonstrated.  This is not because they are
stupid, but because they have only a vague idea that Python even has a
garbage collector, never mind that it could be behaving badly for such
innocuous looking code.

Maybe we should consider more carefully before declaring the status quo
sufficient.  Average developers do allocate millions of objects in bursts
and super-linear time complexity for such operations is not acceptable.
Thankfully I am around to help my programmers work around such issues or
else they'd be pushing to switch to Java, Ruby, C#, or whatever since Python
was inexplicably "too slow" for "real work".  This being open source, I'm
certainly willing to help in the effort to do so, but not if potential
solutions will be ruled out as being unnecessary.

-Kevin
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