Python is Slow, and I Don't Care • Hacker News Board

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#11

Post by titzer » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

If your reasoning is productivity above everything, therefore the only solution you can think of is Python, I call BS.

As a Googler, I could relate countless stories of systems that were cobbled together in Python and then scaled up with massive investment, then later rewritten in C++ or Go, and generally ran with 100x fewer resources. Hell, from what I can tell, almost all of YouTube was written in Python and has or is still being rewritten in C++, Java, and Go, saving XX millions of dollars per year of CPU time.

Sure, prototype with Python. But by the time you get to scaling out a huge service, it's probably time that you rearchitected the system anyway, and you should spend the engineering effort to make it efficient.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#12

Post by exelius » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

duglauk wrote: post #7

"A company’s most expensive resource is now its employee’s time. Or in other words, you. It’s more important to get stuff done then to make it go fast." Now take this sentence and apply it to the end user of your software.

You can only optimize variables (and outcomes) under your control. Coordination is hard, and that's marketing's job to figure out.

If the software is better than anything else available, then the user is optimizing their time within their own constraints. If the users complain that it's too slow and you lose users as a result, then go ahead and optimize. But slow and working is better than fast and imaginary.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#13

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

duglauk wrote: post #7

"A company’s most expensive resource is now its employee’s time. Or in other words, you. It’s more important to get stuff done then to make it go fast." Now take this sentence and apply it to the end user of your software.

[deleted]

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#14

Post by throwaway2048 » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

nhumrich wrote: post #10

duglauk wrote: post #7

"A company’s most expensive resource is now its employee’s time. Or in other words, you. It’s more important to get stuff done then to make it go fast." Now take this sentence and apply it to the end user of your software.

Maybe I'm daft, but I don't quite understand what your getting at.

translated: We dont care if our software runs like crap for you because our time is more important than your user experience.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#15

Post by dkersten » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

duglauk wrote: post #7

"A company’s most expensive resource is now its employee’s time. Or in other words, you. It’s more important to get stuff done then to make it go fast." Now take this sentence and apply it to the end user of your software.

Also, you write the software for X minutes and run it for Y. If cost(X) As a software user, is completely agree with you! I get frustrated by badly performing software so often I regularly wonder if I'd be happier doing something that relied less on shitty software.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#16

Post by nhumrich » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

imode wrote: post #9

not caring about performance destroys faith in projects. if the things we write can't be as performant as we like, we'll use a different language and your project will fade. pretty simple concept. surprised that people don't understand that. (mind you, python is about as performant as I like for the tasks I use it for, so ymmv with the above.)

> if things we write can't be as performant as we like, we'll use a different language

I think you are referring to the fact that devs LIKE speed. And they want things to be fast. I mean, your right. We like speed. Probably a lot more than we should. But those who only care about speed simply wont have as successful careers as those who care about productivity (10xers?), unless your lucky enough to be put on a project that is designed entirely for speed. Lots and lots of tools exist that are "slow", but we use them over faster alternative's because of the features they provide. One simple example is IDE's. I think its pretty narrow-viewed to say all projects will fade because they aren't "as fast as they can be". Everything only needs to be fast enough.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#17

Post by snovv_crash » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

metaphorm wrote: post #4

est wrote: post #2

You should care. PHP7 cared about speed and it was a success. Python 3 cared pretty much everything else except for speed and now 10 years had passed it didn't go anywhere.

Python 3's long road to full adoption is much more about mishandling major breaking changes than it is about lack of performance optimizations.

If Python3 was 5x as fast i can tell you right now that people would be scrambling head over heels to migrate. Instead they are migrating because they no longer have support for their libraries, or because someone said they were a bad person for not keeping up with the latest cool thing.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#18

Post by teilo » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

est wrote: post #2

You should care. PHP7 cared about speed and it was a success. Python 3 cared pretty much everything else except for speed and now 10 years had passed it didn't go anywhere.

Not really true.

Python 3.6 is basically at speed parity with Python 2. There are a few outliers, but in most cases 3 is as fast or faster than 2.

Python 3 adoption is exactly where the devs wanted it to be 10 years later. Almost all major libraries have been ported. Python 3 adoption is only growing. More than 30% of new projects use it. Expect that to grow substantially as 3.6 is adopted.

"didn't go anywhere" is therefore FUD.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#19

Post by pbreit » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #11

If your reasoning is productivity above everything, therefore the only solution you can think of is Python, I call BS. As a Googler, I could relate countless stories of systems that were cobbled together in Python and then scaled up with massive investment, then later rewritten in C++ or Go, and generally ran with 100x fewer resources. Hell, from what I can tell, almost all of YouTube was written in Python and has or…

I don't think there's much sense in using Google as a proxy for anything really. The scale at which Google operates is in another universe.

Re: Python is Slow, and I Don't Care

#20

Post by dyeje » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

est wrote: post #2

You should care. PHP7 cared about speed and it was a success. Python 3 cared pretty much everything else except for speed and now 10 years had passed it didn't go anywhere.

The Python 3 debacle has pretty much nothing to do with performance from what I understand.