[entropy_]

I've been taking part in GCG since ~2008 now. I have only once encountered a problem where my solution in python was too slow but an equivalent one in C would've been fast enough. Though just barely(my python solution ran in ~10min, the C one I wrote later ran in 5min, the time limit was 8min). In that particular case, there was a more efficient algorithm which we were expected to find to solve the problem(ie, my brute force-ish solution was not anticipated and it would've been "cheating" if it had actually worked) and I didn't find it.

In general, I'd much rather be able to implement my solutions as quickly as possible as the challenge is usually in 1) finding the correct algorithm and 2) implementing it correctly and fast. If you can do that, choice of language usually doesn't matter unless in some of the problems you might get in the finals(I've never gotten that far, I usually rank somewhere in the top 2000). Also, for me, the ease with which I get things like arbitrary-size integers, sets and dictionaries far outweighs any speed gains from something like C++.