how fast is Python?

[Peter Hansen]

dan wrote:
> 
> Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote in message news:<3F44DFEB.60AB6492 at engcorp.com>...
> ...
> > And in those very few cases, so far, I have consistently concluded
> > I'm happy enough with the speed of Python given that the speed of
> > *development* in Python is easily 5 to 10 times faster than the
> > speed of development in C.  (And again, it's easy to find cases
> > outside of this range, on either side...)
> >
> I pretty much agree.  The point of my question was not to knock Python
> -- I'm simply curious how fast, _in_principle_, a language like Python
> could be made to run.
> 
> I've looked at Psyco and Pyrex, I think both are interesting projects
> but I doubt anything in the Py world has had nearly the kind of
> man-hours devoted to optimization that Java, C++, and probably C# have
> had.

Oh, I completely misinterpreted the question then.  I thought you wanted
practical information.

_In principle_, (which I'll interpret as "in theory"), Python can be made
to run even faster than C or C++.

In practice, nobody has been able to prove or disprove that theory yet...

;-)

-Peter