[Python-ideas] Why CPython is still behind in performance for some widely used patterns ?

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 8:35 AM, Pau Freixes <pfreixes at gmail.com> wrote:
> def filter(rule, whatever):
>     if rule.x in whatever.x:
>         return True
>
> rules = get_rules()
> whatevers = get_whatevers()
> for rule in rules:
>     for whatever in whatevers:
>         if filter(rule, whatever):
>             cnt = cnt + 1
>
> return cnt
>
>
> The performance of Python compared with the other languages was almost
> x10 times slower. It's true that they didn't optimize the code, but
> they did not for any language having for all of them the same cost in
> terms of iterations.

Did you consider using a set instead of a list for your inclusion
checks? I don't have the full details of what the code is doing, but
the "in" check on a large set can be incredibly fast compared to the
equivalent on a list/array.

> This could be considered an unimportant thing, but its more relevant
> than someone could expect, at least IMHO. If the default code that you
> can write in a language is by default slow and exists an alternative
> to make it faster, this language is doing something wrong.

Are you sure it's the language's fault? Failing to use a better data
type simply because some other language doesn't have it is a great way
to make a test that's "fair" in the same way that Balance and
Armageddon are "fair" in Magic: The Gathering. They reset everyone to
the baseline, and the baseline's equal for everyone right? Except that
that's unfair to a language that prefers to work somewhere above the
baseline, and isn't optimized for naive code.

ChrisA