python speed

[igouy at yahoo.com]

Paul Boddie wrote:
> Steven Bethard wrote:
> > David Rasmussen wrote:
> > Faster than assembly? LOL... :)
> >
> Faster than physics? ;-)
>
> > I think the claim goes something along the lines of "assembly is so
> hard
> > to get right that if you can automatically generate it from a HLL,
> not
> > only will it be more likely to be correct, it will be more likely to
> be
> > fast because the code generator can provide the appropriate
> optimizations".
> >
> I think this is just a restatement of existing motivations for using
> high-level languages and compilers. My impression is that PyPy takes
> inspiration from work which showed that run-time knowledge can
> sometimes produce code that is better optimised than that produced by
> a
> compiler.
>
> That said, when everyone starts showing off their favourite
> benchmarks,
> it might be more interesting not to parade some festival of arithmetic
> yet again. Where more recent versions of the Java virtual machines
> have
> improved is in their handling of object memory allocation, amongst
> other things, and merely scoffing that Java is slow (by pulling
> specific/specialised extension packages out of the hat) fails to
> acknowledge the potential for similar improvements (and others) in
> Python, especially where programs involving plain objects - as opposed
> to numbers, and where no conveniently available and wrapped C/C++
> package exists for the task - are concerned.
>
> Paul

For example, binary trees
http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=binarytrees&lang=all