How slow? (was Re: Python IS slow !)

[Gordon McMillan]

David Steuber wrote:

> Exactly how slow are we talking about here? 

Depends completely on who you're talking to.
 
> I want to use Python for an interactive program.  Speed is nice, but
> it only has to be fast enough to not frustrate the user.  I also
> expect to use it for prototyping.  The plan is to use the Python
> interpreter in the application for an extension and control
> language. Again, speed is nice, but it may not be critical.

Most of the specific complaints about Python's slowness come from 
people doing regular expression searches of large text files and 
comparing the speed with Perl. No question, Perl wins.

Another set of complaints is accompanied by code, and the observation 
that "this seems slow, how can I speed it up". Usually, an 
experienced Pythoner can significantly speed it up (albeit 
sometimes at the expense of clarity).

This thread is a bit unusual in being a general complaint, based on 
measuring Python's function call overhead. Again, there's some truth 
there, but it doesn't appear to be based on a user's perception of 
slowness of an app.

Put another way - I use Python extensively. Every once in a while I 
find I need to profile and optimize some subsection (usually just the 
inner layers of nested loops). 

- Gordon