NumPy 1.20 has been released

NumPy 1.20 has been released

I used to do competitive programming, where you need to write programs/algorithms that solve large instances of problems with typically 1–5 seconds time limit.

Python is a slow runtime, yes. However, we have seen several problems in competitions where Python (running on pypy, of course) outperforms other languages, e.g. Java.

Indeed, we once created a problem that we implemented solutions for in every language accept Java (go figure). We just assumed that since Python ran well within time limits, Java would manage too.

Half-ways through the competition we realized that it was not possible to solve that problem using Java.

I'm not a programming language expert, but I can accept your claim that there are "slow languages", however pypy is a quite snappy runtime.

(Now I teach competitive programming; those who can't do teach.)