Python Performance

[Kragen Sitaker]

In article <8abj20$tsc$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,  <qneill at my-deja.com> wrote:
>Don't forget Interoperability.  It helps to be able to leverage other
>existing libraries and languages when building larger systems.  Python
>ranks high in this area IMHO.

True enough --- but that's usually an implementation and culture issue
rather a language issue.  Microefficiency is somewhat an implementation
issue, but the effort required to achieve microefficiency is a language
issue.

Perl is the exception that tests this rule, though; `` is part of the
language, shift works on @ARGV by default, while (<>) {} iterates over
the lines of the files mentioned on the command line, etc.

But AFAIK there's nothing preventing e.g. Common Lisp from being just
as interoperable as Python, and it would do little violence to Python
to remove all its interfaces to Unix (or, conversely, to embed it in a
very different system like EROS, www.eros-os.org.)  It's just the
culture that has historically put obstacles in its way.

I've been wrong before, though.  :)
-- 
<kragen at pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)