Python interpreter speed

[Terry Reedy]

Fabio Zadrozny wrote:
>> Further, I have an accounting software which was previously in java, but
>> now in python and the performance gain is ausom.
>>
>> Yes it depends on how we write the code but comparing the 2 at least at
>> the middle layer and front-end (pygtk) python is faster than java.
>> Infact I am most certain that swing is not even 50% as fast as pygtk or
>> pyqt.
> 
> Actually, pygtk and pyqt are mostly wrappers for c/c++ code (wrapping
> c/c++ is much easier in python than in java... so, that example ends
> up comparing java to c/c++ and not python).

Well, in CPython, the whole builtin module is a wrapper for a bunch of C 
  coded functions, so one could say much the same thing about any Python 
program.  The real point to me is that one cannot compare the running 
speed of abstract languages, only that of concrete implementations.  One 
can, however, compare the speed of writing equivalent code in various 
languages.