[Demiurge]

In related news, I just measured Apples to be 100 times redder than Oranges! What is the point of benchmarking Python vs Go, when by design we all know Python is slower? So, in this particular case it's 100 times, for completely random reasons. Speed is not why I use Python every day and absolutely have no need for Go, although I wish it would magically replace C++.

[chmike]

I would say because of the rule "if it works, don't fix it". But a factor 10 in performance means potential server cost reduction by a factor 10. I think this is the purpose of this blog post.

[Demiurge]

Again, we already know any strongly typed language can be 100, 1000 times faster. By design. Raw request throughput is not why anyone should be using python. This is why we already have caching and nginx. No one who is using python going to go "aha, scrap this piece of system and rewrite it Go, we will reduce our hardware costs 10 times!" because it is just so much more complicated than that.

[chmike]

To me it's that. Go is compiled to native and the constrain of strongly typed language is another optimization. A ramen profitable startup should make the jump because it can make the difference.

Of course there are some optimization strategies available for pythons, but you have infrastructure complexity depth and so many places where things can break. Beside the optimizations apply only to what can be optimized (static page cache).

Python has a fast code/test/run loop cycle, but Go and D have that now as well with the additional benefit of being fast.

These are the reasons why I decided to leave Python and go for the Go or D route. And I don't see why Go or D couldn't provide a web server as fast as nginx one day.

[Demiurge]

So you think Go is 100 times faster and therefore better than Python for absolutely everything and everyone should use it. Did this benchmark convince you of this, did you already believe it, or do you think this benchmark is great because it help to convince others?

[chmike]

I was convinced before by experience of running a small web server with python using flask and nginx. Go was shown to be 10 time faster for a simple web server, not 100 and I don't think Go is better than python for everythig.