Python speed

[Terry Reedy]

...
> Go back and read the first post in this thread.  Someone wanted to
> know if Python's speed would be an issue in writing a mud.  And, in my
> experience, the answer is "maybe".
...

'Maybe' is certainly correct. Enough users sending enough imputs per second
requiring whatever average response time will eventually overwhelm any
fixed capacity system -- regardless of what language it is written in, and
regardless of the type of system.

You previously said 'likely' rather than 'maybe'.  That requires a bit more
discussion to define a context (number of users, complexity of response,
etc) and substantiate a claim with respect to that context.

When programming in Python, an important part of the context includes the
available native code modules (some are part of the standard distribution).
The first/third person 3d action game Blade of Darkness works as a Python
program because it calls on a (proprietary) native code geometry engine
which in turn relies on graphics board processors.  Use of the Numerical
Python extensions is standard for other computation-intensive applications

When playing text muds (over a dial-up connection), I have noticed that
response time is quite variable.  I have wondered whether delays are mostly
due to everyone deciding at once to race out and bash monsters, internet
congestion, the program stopping to collect garbage and save state to disk,
or maybe the program looping in buggy code.  If you have any experience as
a system operator, I would be interested to know.

I have read that many text muds are scripted with an interpreted C-like
language.  I expect Python to be competitive with this.  If not,
reprogramming the bottleneck functions in C might make up the difference.

Terry J. Reedy