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> Python is slow and this is a serious disadvantage. Eh yes, and no. I don't wish to argue, because out-of-the-box, it's an interpreted language with a global lock, and it most definitely is slower than most compiled languages. Sometimes orders of magnitude so. On the other hand, computers are damn fast, the developer productivity gains of writing Python are huge, and there is a flip side, especially for somebody who wants to "really learn the language." Within the CPython ecosystem, there are tons of well-established 3rd party libraries that take advantage of the speed of C, without your code ever needing to know. Take for example numpy/pandas or asyncio with uvloop. A step up from that, there's Cython, which is surprisingly robust and easy to use. It also makes interfacing with C code rather simple, and thus provides an avenue for optimizing speed-critical code paths without needing to know CPython internals to do so. Outside of using CPython, there's the well-established PyPy, and the up-and-coming Pyston. My point is, if you need a faster Python, with perhaps a little bit of effort it's out there. |