[Mailman-Developers] python is slow

[Bernhard Kuemel]

Richard Barrett wrote:
> On 25 Nov 2003, at 20:06, Bernhard Kuemel wrote:
>> Maybe. However, I don't like python as on our old P60 server it burned 
>> up so much CPU time (15 s/min).
> 
> It would be interesting to see you present convincing evidence that 
> Python runs slower than Perl which you seem happy to rely on.

Eric Steven Raymond says in "The Art of Unix Programming" 
(http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/index.html) on 
http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch14s04.html :

"Python cannot compete with C or C++ on raw execution speed 
(though using a mixed-language strategy on today's fast 
processors probably makes that relatively unimportant). In fact 
it's generally thought to be the least efficient and slowest of 
the major scripting languages, a price it pays for runtime type 
polymorphism. Beware of rejecting Python on these grounds, 
however; most applications do not actually need better 
performance than Python offers, and even those that appear to are 
generally limited by external latencies such as network or disk 
waits that entirely swamp the effects of Python's interpretive 
overhead. Also, by way of compensation, Python is exceptionally 
easy to combine with C, so performance-critical Python modules 
can be readily translated into that language for substantial 
speed gains."

Bernhard

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