python simply not scaleable enough for google?

[Roel Schroeven]

Vincent Manis schreef:
> On 2009-11-14, at 01:11, Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
>>> OK, now we've reached a total breakdown in communication, Alf. You appear
>>> to take exception to distinguishing between a language and its implementation.
>> Not at all.
>>
>> But that doesn't mean that making that distinction is always meaningful.
> It certainly is. A language is a (normally) infinite set of strings with a way of ascribing 
> a meaning to each string. 

That's true, for sure.

But when people in the Python community use the word Python, the word is
not used in the strict sense of Python the language. They use it to
refer to both the language and one or more of implementations, mostly
one of the existing and working implementations, and in most cases
CPython (and sometimes it can also include the documentation, the
website or the community).

Example: go to http://python.org. Click Download. That page says
"Download Python
The current product versions are Python 2.6.4 and Python 3.1.1
..."
You can't download a language, but you can download an implementation.
Clearly, even the project's website itself uses Python not only to refer
to the language, but also to it's main implementation (and in a few
places to other implementations).

>From that point of view, your distinction between languages and
implementations is correct but irrelevant. What is relevant is that all
currently usable Python implementations are slow, and it's not incorrect
to say that Python is slow.

If and when a fast Python implementation gets to a usable state and
gains traction (in the hopefully not too distant future), that changes.
We'll have to say that Python can be fast if you use the right
implementation. And once the most commonly used implementation is a fast
one, we'll say that Python is fast, unless you happen to use a slow
implementation for one reason or another.

-- 
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge
faster than society gathers wisdom.
  -- Isaac Asimov

Roel Schroeven