The Cost of Dynamism (was Re: Pyhon 2.x or 3.x, which is faster?)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 13 Mar 2016 04:02 am, Mark Lawrence wrote:

> So I am clearly not the only programmer in the world who couldn't care
> less about speed.


For somebody who couldn't care less, you sure do keep going on and on and on
and on and on and on and on about it.

Yeah, we get it. The CPython interpreter is plenty fast enough for whatever
you use it for. Good for you! Millions aren't so lucky. They are looking
for something faster, because for them, you can never have too much speed.
When you are trying to solve a 7000x7000 system of equations, you don't
want to wait three days for a solution. Or three hours with Numpy.

And that's why projects like PyPy, Numba, Cython, Pyjion, Pyston, Theano,
FAT Python, Unladen Swallow, Nuitka, Pyrex, Psyco, Parakeet, SWIG and more
exist. For a language which is fast enough, it sure seems that a lot of
people are working to ways to speed up Python applications.

If Bart is such a horrible person for wanting Python to be faster, what does
that make Brett Cannon (Pyjion), Victor Stinner (FAT Python), Stefan Behnel
(Cython), Armin Rigo (Psycho and PyPy), to mention just a few?

And if speed goes against the Python philosophy so badly, why doesn't GvR
stop them, or at least discourage them more?



-- 
Steven