"def" vs "sub" (was RE: More random python observations from a perl programmer)

[Martijn Faassen]

Tom Christiansen <tchrist at mox.perl.com> wrote:
> I remember my frutration as a flaming C advocate (you didn't really
> think I started with Perl, did you? :-) getting a job at a company
> that made US$75k Fortran compilers being told that Fortran would always
> be faster than C because the fc compiler could know more things about
> your code than the cc compiler could, and thus make better compile-time
> optimization to speed run-time.  I wonder whether Python simply hasn't
> matured as far as Perl has along those lines, or whether in fact there
> are inherent barriers, as there are between Fortran and C.  What do you 
> think?  I also notice that Python is bereft of compiler pragmata. 

In part it's inherent problems. Python is way dynamic and therefore hard
to speed up.

But, Pythoneers also know it can be done, by looking at other languages
that are dynamic, such as Smalltalk and Lisp, which have managed to gain some
quite massive improvements in speed.

Pythoneers are actively looking at ways to speed up Python code, so in part
it's also simply maturing. I heard Python *has* speeded up a lot since
earlier versions, in fact.

Regards,

Martijn