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

[Bill Janssen]

> > 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.

Perhaps this is something documentation could help.  I'm thinking of a
one-page checklist listing places they might look for performance
problems, that your programmers could work through.

Bill