Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

From: John Roth (newsgroups_at_jhrothjr.com)
Date: 10/30/04 

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 16:31:24 -0500

"Jeremy Bowers" <jerf@jerf.org> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.10.30.18.40.19.137063@jerf.org...
> On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 12:53:13 +0000, gabriele renzi wrote:
>> well, they failed to implement all of the tests but those implemented
>> actually run faster than CPython.
>
> It is trivial to make something that implements a subset of the language
> run faster than something that implements the entire language.
>
> This is why while I am optimistic and hopeful, I don't consider current
> running speeds to be evidence that they will win. Call me when they've got
> the whole language.
>
> Also, there is the counterarguement that they probably have debug code and
> stuff still in there, or things easily optimized. (I hope so, otherwise
> they are Yet Another Project to fall victim to premature optimization;
> let me say this clearly, it would be a *bad sign* if their code is
> currently optimized.) But that just reinforces my point about the current
> code not being useful as a reference for how fast the final Parrot will
> run.

I suspect that the performance issue is being clouded by the
reference counting mechanism in CPython. Modern garbage collectors
are reputedly significantly faster. If Python 3.0 removes reference
counting it might speed up substantially. Note that IronPython is
reported to run at the same (or better) speed as CPython, even
though the CLR is not optimized for running scripting languages.

John Roth

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