Why is Python slow?

Episode #265, published Tue, May 19, 2020, recorded Tue, May 12, 2020

The debate about whether Python is fast or slow is never-ending. It depends on what you're optimizing for: Server CPU consumption? Developer time? Maintainability? There are many factors. But if we keep our eye on pure computational speed in the Python layer, then yes, Python is slow.

In this episode, we invite Anthony Shaw back on the show. He's here to dig into the reasons Python is computationally slower than many of its peer languages and technologies such as C++ and JavaScript.

Links from the show

Anthony's CPython Source Book: realpython.com/products
Anthony's PyCon Talk: youtube.com
N-body problem example: github.com
HPy project: github.com
Austin profiler: github.com

Prior episodes:
#240: A guided tour of the CPython source: talkpython.fm
#214: Dive into CPython 3.8: talkpython.fm
#168: 10 Python security holes: talkpython.fm
Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm

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Anthony Shaw

Anthony Shaw is a Python Software Foundation Fellow, ASF member, and Python-author. He works at Microsoft on the Open-Source Advocacy team focused on Python.

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