[Python-Dev] Algoritmic Complexity Attack on Python

[Greg Ewing]

> We benchmarked it, and without assembly optimizations, uhash still
> exceeds perl.

It's not just the speed of the hashing itself that you have
to consider, but also how it interacts with the rest of
the dictionary implementation, and how it behaves under
access patters found in a typical Python program.

The core Python developers have put a LOT of effort over
the years into tuning the Python dict implementation
specially for Python. It's not reasonable to expect them
to suddenly throw all that away and replace it with
something that's completely untried in this context!

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
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