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Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

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Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#11

Post by nodesocket »

IshKebab wrote: post #7
ModernMech wrote: post #3

I'm thankful they included a compiled language for comparison, because most of the time when I see Python benchmarks, they measure against other versions of Python. But "fast python" is an oxymoron and 3.14 doesn't seem to really change that, which I feel most people expected given the language hasn't fundamentally changed. This isn't a bad thing; I don't think Python has to be or should be the fastest language in th…

I agree. Unless they make it like 10x faster it doesn't really change anything. It's still a language you only use if you absolutely don't care whatsoever about performance and can guarantee that you never will .

If you’re actually building and shipping software as a business Python is great. The advantages of Python for a startup are many. Large pool of talent that can pickup the codebase on essentially day 1. Fairly easy to reason about, mature, code velocity, typically one and only one way to do things as opposed to JavaScript. There is way more to the story than raw performance.

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#12

Post by svara »

IshKebab wrote: post #7
ModernMech wrote: post #3

I'm thankful they included a compiled language for comparison, because most of the time when I see Python benchmarks, they measure against other versions of Python. But "fast python" is an oxymoron and 3.14 doesn't seem to really change that, which I feel most people expected given the language hasn't fundamentally changed. This isn't a bad thing; I don't think Python has to be or should be the fastest language in th…

I agree. Unless they make it like 10x faster it doesn't really change anything. It's still a language you only use if you absolutely don't care whatsoever about performance and can guarantee that you never will .

The counterargument used to be, the heavy lifting will be offloaded to python modules written in C, like numpy.

Which was true, but maybe not the strongest argument. Why not use a faster language in the first place?

But it's different now. There's huge classes of problems where pytorch, jax &co. are the only options that don't suck.

Good luck competing with python code that uses them on performance.

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#14

Post by ModernMech »

kstrauser wrote: post #8
ModernMech wrote: post #3

I'm thankful they included a compiled language for comparison, because most of the time when I see Python benchmarks, they measure against other versions of Python. But "fast python" is an oxymoron and 3.14 doesn't seem to really change that, which I feel most people expected given the language hasn't fundamentally changed. This isn't a bad thing; I don't think Python has to be or should be the fastest language in th…

I've been writing Python professionally for a couple of decades, and there've only been 2-3 times where its performance actually mattered. When writing a Flask API, the timing usually looks like: process the request for .1ms, make a DB call for 300ms, generate a response for .1ms. Or writing some data science stuff, it might be like: load data from disk or network for 6 seconds, run Numpy on it for 3 hours, write it…

Exactly, most Python devs neither need nor care about perf. Most applications don't even need perf, because whether it's .1 second or .001 seconds, the user is not going to notice.

But this current quest to make Python faster is precisely because the sluggishness is noticeable for the task it's being used for most at the moment. That 6 second difference you note between the Optimal Python and the optimal Rust is money on the table if it translates to higher hardware requirements or more server time. When everything is optimal and you could still be 4x faster, that's a tough pill to swallow if it means spending more $$$.

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#15

Post by svieira »

nadermx wrote: post #10

Tangential, but I practically owe my life to this guy. He wrote the flask mega tutorial in what I followed religiously to launch my first website. Then right before launch, in the most critical part of my entire application; piping a fragged file in flask. He answered my stackoverflow question, I put his fix live, and the site went viral. Here's the link for posterity's sake https://stackoverflow.com/a/34391304/41802…

Nice story! My guess is that the site was https://yout.com/ given your profile. Does it still run Flask?

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#16

Post by bowsamic »

IshKebab wrote: post #7
ModernMech wrote: post #3

I'm thankful they included a compiled language for comparison, because most of the time when I see Python benchmarks, they measure against other versions of Python. But "fast python" is an oxymoron and 3.14 doesn't seem to really change that, which I feel most people expected given the language hasn't fundamentally changed. This isn't a bad thing; I don't think Python has to be or should be the fastest language in th…

I agree. Unless they make it like 10x faster it doesn't really change anything. It's still a language you only use if you absolutely don't care whatsoever about performance and can guarantee that you never will .

Well, that's not true at all. Scientists care about performance, but it turns out that Python is really good for number crunching since it is really good for using very fast C libraries. I know people who use pandas to manipulate huge datasets from radar astronomy. Also, of course, it's used in machine learning. If Python was "only" used in situations where you don't care about performance, it would not be used in so many scenarios that definitely need high performance. Sure, it is not pure Python, but it's still Python being used, just used to orchestrate C libraries

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#17

Post by bowsamic »

svara wrote: post #12
IshKebab wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Unless they make it like 10x faster it doesn't really change anything. It's still a language you only use if you absolutely don't care whatsoever about performance and can guarantee that you never will .

The counterargument used to be, the heavy lifting will be offloaded to python modules written in C, like numpy. Which was true, but maybe not the strongest argument. Why not use a faster language in the first place? But it's different now. There's huge classes of problems where pytorch, jax &co. are the only options that don't suck. Good luck competing with python code that uses them on performance.

> Why not use a faster language in the first place?

Well for the obvious reason that there isn't really anything like a Jupyter notebook for C. I can interactively manipulate and display huge datasets in Python, and without having to buy a Matlab license. That's why Python took off in this area, really

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#18

Post by shcheklein »

IshKebab wrote: post #7
ModernMech wrote: post #3

I'm thankful they included a compiled language for comparison, because most of the time when I see Python benchmarks, they measure against other versions of Python. But "fast python" is an oxymoron and 3.14 doesn't seem to really change that, which I feel most people expected given the language hasn't fundamentally changed. This isn't a bad thing; I don't think Python has to be or should be the fastest language in th…

I agree. Unless they make it like 10x faster it doesn't really change anything. It's still a language you only use if you absolutely don't care whatsoever about performance and can guarantee that you never will .

Probably people at some point were making same arguments about ASM and C. How many people though do ASM these days? Not arguing that for now it is relevant point, obviously Rust / C are way faster.

Re: Python 3.14 is here. How fast is it?

#19

Post by signalblur »

nadermx wrote: post #10

Tangential, but I practically owe my life to this guy. He wrote the flask mega tutorial in what I followed religiously to launch my first website. Then right before launch, in the most critical part of my entire application; piping a fragged file in flask. He answered my stackoverflow question, I put his fix live, and the site went viral. Here's the link for posterity's sake https://stackoverflow.com/a/34391304/41802…

Thanks for sharing this story. It goes to show how much of a difference being kind and helping a stranger can make.

Hope I'm able to do the same for someone one day :)

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