python simply not scaleable enough for google?

[Chris Rebert]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Language L is (in)efficient. No! Only implementations are (in)efficient"
>
> I am reminded of a personal anecdote.  It happened about 20 years ago
> but is still fresh and this thread reminds me of it.
>
> I was attending some workshop on theoretical computer science.
> I gave a talk on Haskell.
>
> I showed off all the good-stuff -- pattern matching, lazy lists,
> infinite data structures, etc etc.
> Somebody asked me: Isnt all this very inefficient?
> Now at that time I was a strong adherent of the Dijkstra-religion and
> this viewpoint "efficiency has nothing to do with languages, only
> implementations" traces to him. So I quoted that.
>
> Slowing the venerable P S Thiagarajan got up and asked me:
> Lets say that I have a language with a type 'Proposition'
> And I have an operation on proposition called sat [ sat(p) returns
> true if p is satisfiable]...
>
> I wont complete the tale other than to say that Ive never had the wind
> in my sails taken out so completely!
>
> So Vincent? I wonder what you would have said in my place?

I'm not Vincent, but: The sat() operation is by definition in
inefficient, regardless of language?

Cheers,
Chris
--
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