python on the smalltalk VM

[Steve Holden]

"Michael Hudson" <mwh21 at cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:m3u23kowgx.fsf at atrus.jesus.cam.ac.uk...
> Carlos Ribeiro <cribeiro at mail.inet.com.br> writes:
>
> > At 23:03 19/04/01 +0100, Michael Hudson wrote:
> > >Douglas Alan <nessus at mit.edu> writes:
> > >
> > > > After many years of research, they came up with a compiler for Self
> > > > that would generate code that runs about one half to one third the
> > > > speed of compiled C code.  This is 30 to 50 times faster than
> > > > Python.
> > >
> > >No it isn't.  At least, not for me.  Generally I find that fairly
> > >optimized C modules are about 40-60 times faster than really optimized
> > >Python (I'm better at Python than C).  Obviously "it depends", but
> > >I've found these numbers to be fairly consistent over a variety of
> > >tasks.
> >
> > For all reasonable applications that I can think of, 30-50 compared
> > to 40-60 is about the same (at least is the same order of
> > magnitude).
>
> Doug was claiming 30-50 times faster than Python is one third to on
> half the speed of C, i.e. C was 60-150 times faster than Python.
>
> > Anyway, what really surprises me is the magnitude of the difference
> > between C and Python.
>
> Really?  It always surprises me how small it is.
>
Yeah, right. 30, 50, 60, 150, whatever. Or, as I might say with my
consulting hat on, "that depends". On far too many factors for any one
figure to easily encapsulate the continuum of performance comparison.

Let's arbitrarily quote an execution speed ratio of 37.463 to 1 from now on,
and refuse to justify it to anyone!

now-how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin-ly y'rs  - steve