(slightly OT): Python and linux - very cool

[Peter Hansen]

Michael Hudson wrote:
> 
> Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> writes:
> 
> > > Actually, Python is pretty quick for an interpreted language. This is
> > > mostly because it is a byte-code interpreter.
> >
> > I'd say it's mostly because the parts that really matter are mostly
> > written in portable C code.  Python is pretty quick in general, not
> > just for interpreted languages.
> 
> This depends what you're doing.  Slicing and dicing strings, making
> network connections, etc., yes.  Doing something that relies on fast
> integer math, and performance begins to hurt.  Use the tool for the
> job, etc.

I thought it was fairly well established at this point that Numeric
and friends allowed such things with fairly high performance.  Now
if you need lots of little random manipulations that those packages
can't help you with, I would agree.

Anyway, "in general" means in general, so naturally there are 
exceptions.

-Peter