are inter preted programs slower and is python interpreted
 

are interpreted programs slower and is python interpreted
or let me put it this way is python application slower than other compled languages
bcos i feel yum is slower than apt

Python is interpreted and as such will run slower than a compiled source.

sort of by definition but not neccecelery in practice.

It depends on lots of things, how well programmed it is for a start.

I have found (with perl) that it will run as near as dammit as fast as C.
In fact, I found C was faster only when I didn't put safety checks in on
file reads and what not, which perl has automatically.

You can't beat assembly language when the unique metric is speed.

However, ease of development, portability, readability, maintainability, debuggability, developer skills are other elements that usually balance the choice toward other languages, like C, C++, Java, PHP, Python and the likes.

thanx alot

This has more to do with repositories and the differences between how yum and apt work than any differences in language.

Nowadays, its really hard to make assembly programs that outperform the optimized assembly generated by a compiler. You'd have to memorize many processor-specific instructions and know which of many options to chose from.

You could always hand-tweak a compiler-generated assembly file ;).

I've seen people make this statement in a few places, but I find it difficult to believe. I'd like to know on what basis it's being said and with respect to exactly which compilers/assemblers/platforms. Could it be that people are just repeating what they've read? Or does someone have personal knowledge of this?

So do the guys writing the compilers. At the end of the day, a person is still "writing the assembler code" because a person (or people) wrote the compiler.

And so do good assembler programmers. They read the processor manuals continually, learn their hardware, and test to see what works best.

If, on the other hand we're comparing the output of a good optimizing compiler to the output of a mediocre assembler programmer, the outcome shouldn't surprise anybody.

This sounds like mostly a waste of time unless you have a very good optimizing compiler for a very high level language doing some very specialized types of things for which the team who wrote the compiler knows better and more effective algorithms than the "human" competitor. But this is certainly a possible scenario.

any language and api are there for a purpose , i think the slowness or the "intensity" of any things are not that important ... they usually serve the long-term purpose well enough ... its silly enough for a windows user to ask for a complete set of commandline flexibilities while linux is able to have complete set of both worlds , sometimes i would like to think that stuffs like these are really actually build for the linux world ...


:twocents:

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In the most literal sense, compiled code is faster than interpreted code (or byte code compiled code, like java), however, there are many other factors which affect the execution speed - Hard disk usage, communication with external hardware (eg, via serial cable) and network communication. On most programs, except perhaps for some very computation heavy projects (eg, scientific research, brute force algorithms, etc) are going to spend more time waiting for the HDD or network than waiting for the CPU to work.

Compilers generate assembly? Wow, this is a new one. I was under the impression that one wrote code in assembly (which is human readable) and then it was compiled into machine language. Sorry, I just had to pick that nit! :)

Seriously though - more than anything else it's the architecture and implementation that will affect performance. You can write really sloppy assembly and clean C, and the C can vastly outperform the sloppy assembly routine. YMMV, batteries not included, etc.

Yes they do (see gcc -S); in fact that's what's properly called compilation.
That's called the assembler.

That's strange. I was under the impression that coders wrote code in assembly language, a higher level language, or a scripting language. (Or under extreme circumstances or with a very deranged coder, directly in machine language!) Assemblers then assembled, script interpreters then interpreted, and compilers compiled, either to assembly language or directly to machine language (making allowance for relocatable modules where not everything has been resolved yet) depending on the compiler (ah, Motorola MPL, we barely knew ya) or possibly options.

(Ah, this "philosiphising" is a nice break from cold hard technical problems!;) )

what is this assembly code you speak of.. is that something like visual basic?

Vaguely, both are a more or less unreadable suite of instructions ...