Python too slow?

[George Sakkis]

On Jan 11, 9:41 am, Hrvoje Niksic <hnik... at xemacs.org> wrote:
> Bruno Desthuilliers <bruno.42.desthuilli... at wtf.websiteburo.oops.com>
> writes:
>
> > fact 1: CPython compiles source code to byte-code.
> > fact 2: CPython executes this byte-code.
> > fact 3: Sun's JDK compiles source code to byte-code.
> > fact 4: Sun's JDK executes this byte-code.
>
> > Care to prove me wrong on any of these points ? Don't bother: you
> > can't.
>
> Fact 4 is misleading because it is only one option available to Sun's
> JDK.  Sun's JDK is also capable of transforming the byte-code to
> native code and letting the processor execute that instead of the
> original byte code, and that is where the most significant speed
> increase comes from.  Most importantly, it does so automatically, by
> default, with no programmer intervention or configuration, and with
> 100% compatibility, so it doesn't compare well to Python accelerators
> like psyco.

Plus, IIRC Java's JIT is not limited to optimizing special cases,
while psyco helps primarily with number-crunching code (admittedly an
important special case) and can have zero or even (small) negative
effect on arbitrary Python programs.

George