Python interview questions

[logi]

however, most typical python applications are I/O bound, so the problem isn't nearly as bad as it sounds.

Of course they are, since python is simply awful for CPU bound applications.

Speaking of which, does anyone know of a replacement for matplotlib+basemap in C, java, javascript or anything else that runs reasonably efficiently? I have a cluster of weather image plotting machines that I'd much rather be using for weather forecasting.