How to make Python run as fast (or faster) than Julia

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 11:17 AM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Feb 2018 02:09:53 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> You're still reimplementing the C code in Python, which is inefficient.
>> Have you considered going back to the *actual algorithm* and
>> implementing that idiomatically in Python? I think you'll find that (a)
>> the code is more readable, and (b) the run time is much lower.
>
> Chris, I think this is incredibly optimistic, if not naive. We're talking
> about a PRNG by Marsaglia, so my guess is that the "original algorithm"
> *is* the C code. Or possibly Fortran.
>
> Even if not, even if there is actually a language-neutral algorithm, its
> a PRNG which means its going to be filled with bit-twiddling and number-
> crunching operations. Pure Python without a JIT is never going to be
> competitive with C or Fortran for code like that.
>

I may have been a little unclear. It's highly unlikely that the run
time of the properly-implemented Python code will be lower than the
original C or Fortran. But it most certainly CAN be more efficient
than the Python reimplementation of the C implementation, which would
narrow the gap considerably. Implementing Python idiotically instead
of idiomatically gives you suboptimal performance.

ChrisA