Is Python overhyped (just like Java)?

[Alex Martelli]

David Abrahams wrote:

>> Also, "read all the lines from a file" is not a primitive in Python -
>> it's a method call ... *and* it is written in C.
> 
> That's what I mean by "a primitive".  All of Python is written in C,
> so that's as primitive as things get.  "Read all the lines from a
> file" can be specifically optimized for Python, whereas when you write
> the "obvious" code for it in C++, you're probably seeing overheads
> which reflect, e.g., buffering which makes sense for general-purpose
> I/O but which is a waste when reading all lines from a file.

Yeah, but as you'll see in my code in the other post I wasn't using
readlines anyway -- just looping on the file, i.e. reading a line at
a time with buffering.  That's pretty close to the loop calling
getline I have in the C++ version, one would hope.


>> Obviously there could be as good an implementation in C++ on the
>> same platform - whether there could be a *better* implementation is
>> another question.
> 
> And another question is whether there could be a better
> implementation *for that particular job*.

Sure!  Hey, 2 minutes' twiddling with the Python code (not even
bothering to profile etc, just on general principles) already
speeded it up a lot -- of course there must be even speedier ways.
Nor did I ever claim otherwise!


Alex