python speed

[Harald Armin Massa]

Dr. Armin Rigo has some mathematical proof, that High Level Languages
like esp. Python are able to be faster than low level code like
Fortran, C or assembly.

I am not wise enough to understand that proof.

Maybe I understood those papers totally wrong and he was saying
something totally different.

But whatever, the pypy-team is formed out of some more people of his
calibre and founded by the European Union to provide "butter by the
fish", say, to produce real code that may deliver that promise.

And I could see real development just from watching the BDFL: 3 years
ago PyPy was 2000times slower then CPython, and Guido was joking "and
that number is growing", this year there were not officially negated
romours that sometime maybe PyPy could be the reference implementation
of Python; and also reports that PyPy is only 18 times slower then
CPython.

For the time being, my Python programs just sit and wait for database,
network, user input or the acting of COM-Applications like Excel or
Winword. Sometimes I even have 3 threads, one to wait for user, one for
database and one to wait for Excel - boy, I wait fast!

But on the other hand, I do no real world applications like triple
mersenne first person shooters, only business software like the one
which in earlier time was written in COBOL or carved into cave walls.
Less challenge, higher reward.

Harald