Python and the need for speed

[Marko Rauhamaa]

bartc <bc at freeuk.com>:

> Of course, it's possible to overdo it; if you look at Lisp, you'll lose
> yourself in the myriad looping options.

Funny, in Scheme, the only looping construct I use is named-let.

> The former /can/ be easily written as:
>
>     while 1:
>         body

Why not say it like it is:

   while True:
       body

> but it's more psychological; I don't want to use an idiom to denote an
> endless loop, I want to be able to express it directly!

C's:

    for (;;)
        statement

I would call an idiom.

Python's

    while True:
        body

is about as straightforward as it gets.

> Python's byte-code does at least optimise

I don't understand why there's so much talk about CPython's bytecode on
this list. That should only be of interest to active CPython developers.


Marko