Is python really slow?

[David Bolen]

Fernando Pereira <pereira at cis.upenn.edu> writes:

> Any Java performance evaluation that doesn't take into account the effect of
> JITC/HotSpot is worthless. Unless the test program runs for quite a while,
> runtime will include byte-code interpretation (before the frequently-visited
> code is compiled) and compilation.

As long as what you're trying to evaluate will be a long running
program.  Otherwise, regardless of how well your test program may
eventually do after runtime permits the compilation, it's still going
to be the interpretation overhead in typical use (e.g., for short
tasks).

As usual, benchmarking and performance evaluation is an area fraught
with peril :-)

--
-- David
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