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

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[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 35 points 5 months ago

In all the stuff I do in Python, runtime is not a consideration at all. Developer productivity is far more of a bottleneck. Having said that, I do of course see the value in these endeavours.

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 9 points 5 months ago

If everyone had a magic lamp that told them whether performance was going to be an issue when they started a project then maybe it wouldn't matter. But in my experience people start Python projects with "performance doesn't matter", write 100k lines of code and then ask "ok it's too slow now, what do we do". To which the answer is "you fucked up, you shouldn't have used Python".

[-] mapto@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Q: what do we do? A: profile and decompose. Should not be that distant as a thought

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago

Profiling is an extremely useful tool for optimising the system that you have. It doesn't help if you have the wrong system entirely though.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

That's why you need an architect to design the project for the expected requirements. They'll ask the important questions, like:

how many users (if it's a server)
any long-running processes? If so, what will those be doing?
how responsive does it need to be? What's "fast enough"?
what's more important short term, feature delivery or performance? Long term? How far away is "long term"?
what platforms do we need to support?
is AI or similar in the medium term goals? What's the use case?
how bad is downtime? How much are you willing to spend if downtime isn't an option?

You don't need all the answers up front, but you need enough to design a coherent system. It's like building a rail system, building a commuter line is much different than a light rail network, and the planners will need to know if those systems need to interact with anything else.

If you don't do that, you're going to end up overspending in some area, and probably significantly.