At 01:25 PM 1/9/04 +0000, Moore, Paul wrote:

What I was trying to say was that there are benefits to having an implementation in Python [1] (if that is possible). The key benefit of a C implementation seems to me to be that it is faster. That's fine, but it's important to have a balanced view - performance isn't overwhelmingly more important than other qualities.

[1] For example:

- Maintainability - Usefulness as an example of good coding practices (on the assumption that we're after good *Python* practices, rather than good C ones...) - Accessibility for reference/documentation - Reusability (maybe less so if the C version is designed to allow subclassing)

Perhaps future debates on this issue could be put to bed by using Pyrex. Granted, Pyrex is not actually Python. But it's awfully close, and would certainly address the issue of making algorithms clearer than would be the case in a pure C version. (It also automatically produces subclassable types.)