For a fast implementation of Python

[Alex Martelli]

cmdrrickhunter at yaho.com <conrad.ammon at gmail.com> wrote:

> Psyco does some JIT compiling of Python, supposedly making it faster.
> You do need to think a bit, however, beforehand.
> If you really thing that the "speed" of execution is important for your
> application, a scripting language such as python may be the wrong tool.
>  A language such as C++ or Java which is designed to be a compiled
> language can be optimized much faster than python because they impose
> more rules.

Java generally produces bytecode that is then run by a virtual machine,
just like Python does; yes, Java has many more rules, but in general
they're not ones particularly conducive to optimization -- in fact,
optimization in Java generally hinges on just-in-time code generation
just like psyco performs, and if such JIT VMs optimize better it's
chiefly due to the huge number of person-years that have been devoted to
perfecting them (as opposed to maybe 1 person-year spent on psyco).

C and C++ do usually generate machine language directly, and their tools
(optimizing compilers first and foremost) have enjoyed investments of a
magnitude comparable to Java's (though, by now, Java's getting a lot
more investment); moreover, C++'s rules _are_ heavily optimization
oriented (e.g., no garbage collection -- being responsible for every bit
of memory is a huge chore during application development, and a cause of
many application bugs, but it DOES allow absolute maximal speed).


Alex