Why don't strings share data in Python?

[Mike Coleman]

bokr at oz.net (Bengt Richter) writes:
> >I almost thought I might be able to use NumPy arrays, as it looks like they do
> >share data.  They're not hashable, though, unfortunately, which kills the
> >usage I had in mind.
> >
> So what did you have in mind?

Various string and sequence algorithms on really large data sets (gigabytes).
Bioinformatics.

Python is ideal for prototyping this stuff, but a bit profligate with memory
sometimes.  Some things feel slower (e.g., quadratic?) than I'd expect, at
times.

Mike