On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:24:11 -0800, Michael Chermside mcherm@mcherm.com wrote:

Carlos Riberio writes:

...

One possible marketing strategy is to use the adjective "fast" in a broader sense. The Python slogan could be something like: "Programming has never been any faster" -- this changes the playing ground, from raw performance to *programming* performance.

I think Carlos is onto something here. Guido's original question was how to fight this meme... in other words, people think of Python as slow, whether they have measured it or not. Just like they think of Java as being more portable. Talking about "fast enough" is just another way of reminding people that we're really quite slow (even if that's not true).

So how about a slogan like "Code it Fast, with Python", or "Python: Code Fast" -- one which emphasizes the (easily defended) claim that development time is shorter with Python, but which at the same time manages to associate the word "fast" with "Python".

Whatever the slogan is, the most important point is: Python (and Pythonistas in general) should not be ashamed about Python's speed. I've checked most of the links that popped up as this thread progressed, and followed other similar links. In many cases, Python advocates are quoted as saying that speed improvements were due to recoding in C. That's definitely *not* the way we're going to sell the perception of speed. It is an unnecessary apology, and it sells the wrong idea. It says "we know it's slow, but we're moving to a faster language to improve performance". Not exactly reassuring.

As far as the slogan is concerned - I still stand for my proposal, but I don't know if anyone has registered it first... I fear it is, it sounds strangely familiar. But I hope not.

p.s. Can someone imagine a Microsoft senior executive saying that "C# is now faster because we rewrote the critical parts in C?" Or the same for Sun & Java? ;-)