Why Python Is So Slow (And What Is Being Done About It) (thenewstack.io)

submitted 5 months ago by dominiquec@lemmy.world to c/python@programming.dev

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 6 points 5 months ago

That's not really true. C# and Java are reference-based, uses GC and can be multithreaded, and are very comparable to Rust/C++/C performance. Certainly no more than twice as bad. Whereas Python is probably 50x as bad.

The real answer is that Python developers have deliberately avoided worrying about performance when designing the language, until maybe 2 years ago. That means it has ended up being extremely dynamic and difficult to optimise, and the CPython implementation itself has also not focused on performance so it isn't fast.

But I agree the aim of offering C/C++ speed is never going to be met with Python syntax.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

They can probably beat or at least match Javascript, which has been heavily optimized, but the cap is going to be something like Lua (not LuaJit) without significant, painful changes.

If you want faster Python today, you can try numba or Cython, both solve the problem in a different way with different tradeoffs.