Python speed

[Greg Jorgensen]

"jcm" <grumble at usa.net> wrote in message
news:9ihjfu$3ls$1 at news.mathworks.com...
> Greg Jorgensen <gregj at pdxperts.com> wrote:
> > "jcm" <grumble at usa.net> wrote in message
> > news:9ifo90$4hh$1 at news.mathworks.com...
>
> >> Well, I say this because I've written a mud engine in Python and it's
> >> slow.
>
> > I drove my motorcycle around Laguna Seca, and it was slow. Maybe if I
bought
> > a different brand of motorcycle I could go around the track faster.
>
> Well that's just silly.  That's a bad analogy, for reasons that should
> be obvious.

Given the little information you posted it's an apt analogy. Why should
anyone assume Python is at fault when we haven't seen any of your code? We
are supposed to assume that you are an expert programmer who has maxed out
the possibilities of Python, but you don't offer any evidence of that.
Likewise my facetious analogy expects you to assume that I am an expert
motorcycle rider, but I don't offer any evidence.

> Also, recall that I said my ONLY point was that cpu-bound performance
> CAN become an issue.  That is, depending on what you want your mud to
> do, you may find Python to be slow.  I've spent time trying to squeeze
> more performance out of Python, but was unable to speed things up to a
> point where I was happy.

A "MUD engine" sounds to me like something sufficiently complicated and
unique that no one who hasn't seen your code can really comment on it. It's
not like writing, "I wrote a quicksort program in Python and it's slow." I
don't know what a MUD engine is supposed to do or how complicated it is. I
am guessing that there are a lot of ways to write one, though.

> I didn't bother posting my source code,
> because I'm personally not interested in looking for further
> optimizations.  Feel free to email me if you want it, but I doubt it's
> worth your time.

I guess I don't know WHAT you want. If your point is that CPU-bound programs
are slow, we can agree and leave it at that.

Greg Jorgensen
PDXperts LLC
Portland, Oregon, USA