Fibonacci series recursion error

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 08 May 2011 01:44:13 -0400, Robert Brown wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> writes:
>> If you value runtime efficiency over development time, sure. There are
>> plenty of languages which have made that decision: Pascal, C, Java,
>> Lisp, Forth, and many more.
> 
> I don't understand why you place Lisp and Forth in the same category as
> Pascal, C, and Java.  Lisp and Forth generally have highly interactive
> development environments, while the other languages generally require an
> edit, compile, run it again debugging cycle.

Good point. Perhaps I need to rethink where Lisp and Forth sit in the 
development vs runtime trade-off continuum.


> Python requires me to rewrite the slow bits of my program in C
> to get good performance.

Python doesn't require you to re-write anything in C. If you want to make 
a different trade-off (faster runtime, slower development time) then you 
use a language that has made the appropriate trade-off. This applies 
whether you are talking about the entire program, or just one subroutine.


> Why is that an efficient use of developer time?

Because for any non-trivial program, it is faster and more developer 
friendly to just write one or three performance-critical routines in C, 
and the rest in Python, than it is to write everything in C.



-- 
Steven