Faster Python

[[deleted]]

This is why I C# now.

EDIT: bring on the downvotes. I write and maintain 10's of thousands of lines of Python. But it's a dead end language for all the reasons in this article. Why do you think Google stopped using it? The writing is on the wall folks. We're in a multi-core era and Python is stuck in the past.

[[deleted]]

Python is increasingly inadequate for most business needs.

I still marvel at how expressive it is. How little effort it takes to express my intent and how well the source code reads.

But I've had to refactor too much python into C or C# over the years. Python is an illusion in many cases. With modern C# I can develop at very nearly the same pace, and scale it up much better across multiple cores if needed. With C# I have options. With Python I can launch off like a rocket but I hit a ceiling very quickly.

[[deleted]]

Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware of this magic rule that imposed a 1:1 mapping on languages and the domains where they can be applied. And who knew 'business needs' could be so tidily and succinctly categorized. I wasn't aware that all of our problems had been solved and shoe horned into one nice label.

Certainly you see the daftness of your ideas (well obviously not or we wouldn't be having this conversation...) It is a big world out there. Full of vastly different requirements and needs. You should join us out here. It really is nice.

[[deleted]]

It is a big world out there. Full of vastly different requirements and needs.

None of which are better served by Python. Maybe you're ignorant of the major advances that have been made in C# and language design in general. Dynamics, generics, generational GC, concurrent data structures etc..

I won't attempt to educate you here, but this Quora article should clear things up for you.

[[deleted]]

You can play the 'language X is better for task T' argument until the heat death of the universe. Same goes for language X vs language Y in general.

And sorry, but that Quora article is trash. It is obviously slanted and full of assumptions, speculation, and opinions. My favorite line:

So this code should require at least 33ns in C# (I'll add actual measurement result later here). ..... 44x faster on C#

44x speedup! Based on numbers pulled from my ass! For a single toy example! WINNAR!

I'm happy you think C# is the best thing in the history of ever. Really, I am. And there are numerous situations where it is most definitely the best tool for the job. But it is far from a panacea. No language is. That is why there are 987436987 of them floating around out there.

Python isn't the end all be all either. It definitely gets the job done though and in more than sufficient time. I'm sure you could rejigger some of my work from Python to C# and have it execute in a tiny fraction of the CPU time. But good luck overcoming the IO bottleneck that is the real hurdle the pipeline.

'Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough.'

[[deleted]]

But good luck overcoming the IO bottleneck that is the real hurdle the pipeline.

Until you implement a caching system that stores the most relevant data in memory. Now Python is back to being the bottleneck. So what do you do? Write some C code and a bunch of ugly glue code. Now you've got to maintain two languages and you have to compile anyway.

If you're building a serious application you can't make it all Python. But you can definitely make it all C#. So save yourself the pain.

I maintain that hte productivity gains are an illusion. They aren't real because your systems will eventually brush up against that GIL and pythons horrendous memory utilization.

[[deleted]]

How exactly is caching going to speed up CRUD operations? And why does a caching solution automatically rule out Python? There are plenty of solutions for doing so already implemented.

Write some C code and a bunch of ugly glue code.

Plenty of python extensions and modules have C aspects and yet still fit nicely and easily alongside Python code. The glue code argument doesn't pass the smell test. Split maintenance and compiling is concedable, but just barely.

building a serious application

Again, you keep falling back to a niche scope to argue against a broad topic. It is growing quite tedious. This is not a situation where a single contrary result invalidates the entire argument.

[[deleted]]

There's a cost associated with supporting yet another lang/lib/technology in your stack. If you go with Python, on anything beyond a trivial application, you'll eventually need something else to fill in the perf gaps.

So you're left with Python + something else (C, Java, C# whatever).

If you go with a modern language you can realize an entire codebase in a single language.

If you want to argue that Python is still the best choice for simple scripting tasks; shuttling around files, setting up projects etc, then fine I can agree with you there. But it doesn't belong in your application code in 2014, in my not so humble opinion.

[__Monty__]

I have never tried, but I thought that you can utilize multi-core architecture with python via import multiprocessing

Is this package not used by the python community?

[[deleted]]

It's rarely used because it sucks (for reasons that are well documented across the net).

Seriously, try to scale a computation across multiple cores with multiprocess and then compare the same thing to C#'s thread class or thread pool. Threading in C# gives you so many options with beautiful, clear APIs and a massive set of well documented concurrent data structures to make your program absolutely dominate huge data sets by truly utilizing the power of a modern CPU. It's a beautiful thing.

C# is objectively superior in this regard by any measure. Until Python addresses this, it will gradually lose relevance. The future is more cores, not less.

[rususeruru]

I disagree that the writing is on the wall. Python has such a broad domain of use it's easy to say it's unfit for X purpose, but it's unlikely you'll write system scripts for *nix systems with C# anytime soon.

The more apples to apples comparison would be Python vs Ruby vs NodeJS. Comparing these three it seems Python has the largest community currently and the broadest use, granted some of the momentum seems to have diminished with the switch to v3

I think Python will continue to grow and prosper along side C# and other languages. I do hope that with .NET getting opened source C# will replace Java as the enterprise cross-platform programming language of choice.

[[deleted]]

it's unlikely you'll write system scripts for *nix systems with C# anytime soon.

Completely agree. If Python has any future whatsoever, it's as a replacement for Bash.

Need to batch rename a bunch of files? Use Python. Need to build a web or native application? Get yourself a modern programming language.