Python performance

[Cameron Laird]

In article <jQ%w4.238$m4.7517 at news>, Chris Ryland <cpr at emsoftware.com> wrote:
>The recent Python-for-Lisp-ers note and other recent notes have brought up
>Python performance.
>
>I'm just curious (being an old language hacker for 30+ years but new to
>Python): why is Python performance ultimately any worse than Lisp?
>
>Is it because there's only been one major implementation effort so far, and
>so people haven't had a chance to learn the techniques required to make it
>run fast, while Lisp has had 30+ years to mature?
>
>What's so different about compiling Python vs. Lisp? Some Lisp compilers
>have gotten quite good over the years.
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There have, in fact, been several Python implementations already <URL:
http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.python/python_varieties.html>.
They look "major" to me, although I can imagine you might be setting the
boundaries in a different place from me.

Performance is an explicit motivation for most of the alternative
Pythons.

Guido regularly professes a lack of interest in performance.  At
least part of the time, he's using that to attract attention to his
profound belief in the importance of correctness; he works very, very
hard to get Python "right", and, from what I can see, has faith that
performance will follow and/or can be left to others.

One difference between Python and LISP is that with Python, as with
most its contemporaries, one has more of a feeling that the performance-
pertinent action is happening in the libraries rather than the language.

My conclusion:  Python performance can be (roughly) as good as LISP's.
It is, already, for the domains that matter most to the big players of
the Python world.
-- 

Cameron Laird <claird at NeoSoft.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html