Python and the need for speed

[Rick Johnson]

On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 7:21:21 PM UTC-5, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> My take on the idea of making Python less dynamic in order
> to improve speed is that you'll end up with a language
> that, while it may superficially resemble Python, doesn't
> really feel like Python.  Boo is an example of that. It has
> a Python-like syntax, but to get any speed advantage you
> need to add static type delarations, and then it feels more
> like programming in C# than Python. At that point, you
> wonder whether you might just be better off writing your
> program in C# to begin with.

Which is exactly why i keep warning about how dangerous
these type-hints are. If these dirty little type-hint
syntaxes start propagating in the wild, soon, we'll all be
writing code that _looks_ like C, but executes like
_python_. At that point, what would be the advantage of
writing Python code?

I don't write Python code because i like how slow it
executes, no, i write Python code because (first and
foremost) i like how clean the syntax is; because i like the
flexibility of interpreted languages; because i enjoy rapid
development; because i like introspection; because i like
batteries included. These are the fundamental attributes
that make Python so special. Sure, there are a few other
high level interpreted languages out there (Ruby springs to
mind) but none of them are as enjoyable (to me, and many
others here) as Python. Even with all it's warts, this
lanague has (at least historically), been very special to
me.

I beginning to think that the gaining interest in creating
derived python languages is a direct result of the type-
hints fiasco. But the community fissure began when Py3000
was released. Too many voices in this community are being
ignored.