A public relations problem

A public relations problem

I agree that Python is not the best tool for that job. The answer here would be C or Cython.

I heard this myself from a bunch of "scientific Python" people a few years ago. The response from a colleague of mine who isn't (or wasn't) really a Python user was, "Why not just write the code in C in the first place and just ignore Python?" That's a pretty hard question to answer even for those of us who feel moderately productive in Python.

The big problems with Python's evolution have been the denial that various disadvantages are "real enough" and that everything has to be tied somehow to CPython or not be completely legitimate (although some in the "scientific" community are slowly accepting things like PyPy after choosing to ignore it for years). Need to cross-compile Python in a sane way or target embedded systems or mobile devices? No-one needs to do that! Wasn't Python for Symbian Series 60 not enough?! Thankfully, stuff like Micro Python has been developed and has presumably thrived by filling an otherwise neglected niche. Meanwhile, attempts to deliver CPython as a mobile platform seem to be stuck on repeat at the earliest stage. Plenty of examples of other domains exist if you care to look.

In the end, Python values other features higher than performance; and again, that's largely a design decision.

People have been saying this for twenty years. Making a virtue of such things - that performance is a lost cause and that everyone should instead celebrate other things including the tendency to make the language even more baroque - is precisely what has held the language back for a good long time, too. Such attitudes probably put Perl in the place it currently resides today, in case any lessons from history were needed.