C is it always faster than nump?

[Dan Stromberg]

On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:03 PM Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Feb 2022 at 15:39, Avi Gross via Python-list
> <python-list at python.org> wrote:
> > Take interpreted languages including Python and R that specify all kinds
> of functions that may be written within the language at first. Someone may
> implement a function like sum() (just an example) that looks like the sum
> of a long list of items is the first item added to a slightly longer sum of
> the remaining items. It stops when the final recursive sum is about to be
> called with no remaining arguments. Clearly this implementation may be a
> tad slow. But does Python require this version of sum() or will it allow
> any version that can be called the same way and returns the same results
> every time?
> >
>
> That's also true of C and pretty much every language I know of. They
> define semantics, not implementation.
>

This comes back to something we've discussed before.

A language that is described primarily by a reference implementation rather
than a standard, runs the risk of being defined by that implementation.