Python to surpass C performance by 2030

[Erno Kuusela]

just for fun i ran pystone under python versions since 1.5.2 to
current cvs. here are the results:

% for py in python1.5 python2.0 python2.1 python2.2 ./python; do echo $py; $py ~/pystone.py; done
python1.5
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Pystone(1.1) time for 10000 passes = 0.81
This machine benchmarks at 12345.7 pystones/second
python2.0
Pystone(1.1) time for 10000 passes = 0.86
This machine benchmarks at 11627.9 pystones/second
python2.1
Pystone(1.1) time for 10000 passes = 0.69
This machine benchmarks at 14492.8 pystones/second
python2.2
Pystone(1.1) time for 10000 passes = 0.61
This machine benchmarks at 16393.4 pystones/second
./python
Pystone(1.1) time for 10000 passes = 0.51
This machine benchmarks at 19607.8 pystones/second

since 1.5.2 is about 4 years old, the improvement per year is about
13.2% on average. if we assume that 1.5.2 is 50 times slower than
C (probably conservative?), then at 13.2% per year since 1998 it
will add up to 53x improvement in 32 years.

i wonder if this would be a good application for the time machine...

learn python today, and in 28 years you will have a job writing
the speed-critical parts of c programs in python :)

  -- erno