Python IS slow ! [was] Re: Python too slow for real world

[Guido van Rossum]

Markus Kohler <markus_kohler at hp.com> writes:

> >>>>> "Marko" == Marko Schulz <4mschulz at informatik.uni-hamburg.de> writes:
> 
>     Marko> Markus Kohler <markus_kohler at hp.com> wrote:
>     >>  Python-1.5.2c1 ....  0.52 seconds
>     >> 
>     >> Squeak ....  0.13 seconds.
> 
>     Marko> I wouldn't put too much meaning in this number. You can't
>     Marko> say how big the startup costs are for a python
>     Marko> vs. squeak. 
> 
> I'm not really interested in the startup costs. One can make them near
> zero for squeak, by compiling the image into an executable.  These are
> the times without startup costs.

Markus, I think Marko was asking how you measured the times.  If you
used something like "time python bench.py" you were measuring Python's
(considerable) start-up time, and you are misrepresenting Python's
speed.  On the other hand, if you used Python's time.clock():
    t1 = time.clock()
    bench()
    t2 = time.clock()
you're fine.  Without this information your numbers are meaningless
(at least to skeptics :-).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)