Google quietly releases open-source NX server

As everyone knows, Python is really, really slow. You simply cannot use Python for real projects. Yet it says here

Quoting:Neatx is written in Python, with a few wrapper scripts in Bash and one program written in C "for performance reasons."

Google needs to hire some programmers who know what they're doing. Neatx should have been written in C#, Java, or a fast language. {Note: I'm mocking the articles and posts around here lately spreading FUD about Python being slow. I trust that Google's developers have a clue about the choice of language.}

And Steve Yegge (also at Google) writes servers in JavaScript. [Can't find the reference at the moment...]

bigg --

Wait a minute --

Python actually is slow. You need Ruby to make it look fast.

Ruby? Python?

It does not matter

Why the Lucky Stiff wrote code that lets you compile your Ruby into Python byte code! http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7432/ (see the portion of this article titled 'Heresy!')

It all bytes!

Python is hundreds of time slower than C#, so that means Neatx will perform about as well as 26k dialup.

6x -

Communist!

TC -

How do you get 26 kittens to dial anybody up?

dino,

Heresey would mean I was like a Lutheran or a Calvinist.

Speaking of Calvin, I use 26 tigers on all of my dial up connections. It makes short work of telemarketers.

6x -

Mmm. Telemarketers -- tasty. Gassy, but soft and tender.

Quoting: posts around here lately spreading FUD about Python being slow

I must say that even though the "slowness" of python may be exaggerated and/or specific to some kinds of benchmarks, google's use of it does nothing to disprove the benchmarks that had been linked in the forums here. As most programmers would know (or should know) that performance of a complete product mostly depends on < 10% of the code. So while python's performance might be okay for things like GUI, it may be below par for stuff like number crunching. Indeed, critics may well conclude that google had to use C for performance critical piece since python is not up to mark. Theoretically, a JIT like psyco should enable python to go as fast as other JITed languages though java/C# JITs are much more mature so would have an advantage.

> google's use of it does nothing to disprove the benchmarks that had been linked in the forums here

Exactly, because benchmarks do not need to be disproven, as they are complete nonsense when making blanket statements about a programming language. What it does is demonstrate that anyone making a blanket statement about Python being useless is clueless. I'll take a Google programming team over an anonymous commentator any day.

> it may be below par for stuff like number crunching

Check out Cython. You pull out the bottlenecks, add typing for the variables (roughly speaking) on that part of the code, and you will end up with performance that is almost as good as C.

I will admit that Python does give the programmer the option to write slow code.

Quoting:Google needs to hire some programmers who know what they're doing.

But Guido van Rossum was a bad choice, huh!?