Standard Forth versus Python: a case study

[bearophileHUGS at lycos.com]

Ian McConnell wrote:
> > If you can use Psyco and your FITS lines are really long (well, maybe
> > too much, the treshold if about >~3000 in my PC) you can use something
> > like this instead the builtin timsort:
> > http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/466330
> > (To compute the median on a image line the median that uses sort is
> > probably better in most cases, expecially if you use the built in sort
> > of numerical libraries.)
>
> sort() sorts all of the data, but you're only after one or two numbers, so
> the MODFIND method may be faster for the median:

The modified quicksort I have shown in the cookbook (466330) is O(n)
too, and it modifies the list in place, so you can apply it twice for
lists of even len.

Bye,
bearophile