python philosophical question - strong vs duck typing

[David Harks]

On 1/3/2012 12:13 PM, Sean Wolfe wrote:
> if we are coding in python but looking for
> more performance,

Are you in fact in this situation? Despite years of folks mentioning how 
Python is 'slower than C++', I've seen a project where a developer 
churned out a feature using Python's generators that performed much 
faster than the C++ implementation it replaced. It wasn't because the 
C++ was slower by nature; it's because it was harder to express the 
optimal algorithm in C++ so the C++ developer chose a sub-optimal 
approach in the interest of meeting a deadline.

There's always a tradeoff. Making a language less expressive 
(constraining ourselves) in favor of runtime performance is not always 
the right tradeoff.