Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

"It doesn't matter than Python is slow, besides we can use compiled libraries to speed it up"

"People saying it doesn't matter that Python is slow are deluding themselves and preventing Python from getting faster like JS did"

"Python is inherently harder to optimize than JS since it has <very dynamic features>"

"Smalltalk/Lisp/etc are also very dynamic yet are much faster"

"The slowness of Python is harming the planet by being inefficient and therefore wasting more energy/producing more pollution"

Did I miss any arguments? I know certain topics are bound to attract some repetitive discussion, but "Python is slow" has been one of the worst.

"Because Guido said so" isn't on your list, but otherwise I think you got them all

> "Python is inherently harder to optimize than JS since it has <very dynamic features>"

Python is not a very dynamic language in the sense that you actually can't change a lot of stuff (and a number of the things you can change just segfault CPython). I think JS is more dynamic, for example. Or Ruby.

These are not my arguments, mind you; I don't know enough to make them.

You've piqued my interest, though: can you give me an example of those things that you can't change or that break CPython?

Things like the Carlo Verre hack (also a thing you can't change —any more— in Python: builtins), editing objects during their construction (via e.g. gc)... generally, the gc module allows other ways as well to crash your interpreter.

    >>> import gc
    >>> 'foo'.lower()
    >>> gc.get_referents(str.__dict__)[0]['lower'] = str.upper
    >>> 'foo'.lower()
    segmentation fault (core dumped)  python

(That's the method lookup cache)

A talk in this direction is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCGofLIzX6g

"The slowness isn't worth the metaclass abuse" would be my take

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