Hacker News Reader

I don't know why but Python attracts some real zealots. I think everyone has had this conversation about Python's speed with someone (I have, unfortunately, had it many times)...if your program is slow, it is always your fault, Python is perfectly optimised and there is no reason to use any other language...I don't get it. Why does Python need to be all things to all people (srs, I want to understand)?

View on HN

Perhaps Python doesn't need to be all things to all people, but it does need to be performant because people really shouldn't start projects with Python unless they are sure their project will never have performance requirements that Python can't deliver on, and they understand the limits of the "just rewrite it in C!" or "just use multiprocessing!" advice. Since it's generally unpredictable whether a project's performance requirements will exceed Python's ability or whether the eventual bottlenecks will be amenable to the aforementioned advice, using Python is generally a bad idea; however, many people don't understand the significant caveats to C/multiprocessing and therefore continue to happily start projects in Python (and paint themselves into corners that are expensive to back out of).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com