Performance of Python 3

[Terry Reedy]

Paul Boddie wrote:
> On 1 Mar, 15:20, Steve Holden <st... at holdenweb.com> wrote:
>> Kless wrote:
>>> Does anybody has seen the performance of Python 3?
>>> Respect to speed it's the last language together to Ruby 1.8, but Ruby
>>> 1.9 has a lot of better performance. :(
>> I'm not sure what you think the speed of Ruby has to do with Python.
> 
> I imagine the author was contrasting the priorities of the developers
> of each language implementation. Ruby 1.8 and earlier were regarded as
> being very slow; Ruby 1.9 is faster because the developers have used
> techniques similar to those employed in the CPython implementation.
> Although one shouldn't extrapolate performance improvements from the
> difference between two consecutive releases, one can observe that one
> set of developers has prioritised performance (admittedly to remedy
> deficiencies) while another set has prioritised features.

It seems to me that comparing the Py2.5/6 -- Py3.0 change to the 
Ruby1.8 -- Ruby1.9 change is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. 
The latter apparently was mostly a 'speed up existing features' change 
while the former was a 'make major features changes' release.  Changing 
Python's basic text model from extended ascii to unicode *is* a major 
change and one that is still being worked out.  Python has had speedup 
releases before and will again (3.1).  I presume Ruby has had and will 
have feature oriented releases.

All of this is about 'current phase of development' rather than the 
'priorities of the developers'.

It ignores 'performance of code writing and reading', which certain is 
at least a Python priority and strength.  For some people, the 3.0 
switch to unicode rather than just ascii identifiers already improves this.

tjr