Python at the Speed of Light (ok, not really)

Talk done for Chikka at PyCon PH 2014.

Transcript

1. Python in the Speed of Light (ok, not really)
2. Chad n. chocolate-consuming, code-churning, curious creature currently coding for Chikka’s Connectiviteam (sic) who? me?
3. the sad truth: python is s.l.o.w.
4. the sad truth: python is s.l.o.w. http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php? test=all&lang=python3&data=u64q
5. so how come we can live with it? Source: http://www.python.org/about/quotes/
6. alas! all is not yet lost! (yay!)
7. we can optimize stuff (lots of it!)
8. we can optimize algorithms
9. [optimize algorithms] Big-“Oh” notation: O(f(n)) naive, what you probably learned in CS undergrad
10. we can optimize architecture
11. [optimize architecture]
12. we can optimize actual runtime
13. [optimize runtime] JIT in a nutshell: good? bad?
14. [optimize runtime] PyPy Stackless
15. we can optimize hardware
16. [optimize hardware] do not confuse with CPython!
17. [optimize hardware] PyCUDA!
18. [optimize hardware] more in a short while after this mini public service announcement...
19. we can also micro-optimize (oh… :[ )
20. [micro-optimization] if most probable condition: do_stuff() elif next most probable condition: do_stuff() elif third most probable condition: do_stuff() . . . . . . . . . else: # least probable condition do_stuff() ever heard of this pattern? →
21. [back to regular programming*] let’s talk a bit about gevent *pun intended
22. gevent is… 53.7% Python 35.8% C 10.3% Shell 0.1% Other See: https://github.com/surfly/gevent
23. gevent is… 53.7% Python 35.8% C 10.3% Shell 0.1% Other See: https://github.com/surfly/gevent ← see here, C here?
24. gevent a closer look installing from github … pip install cython git+git://github.com/surfly/gevent. git#egg=gevent See: https://github.com/surfly/gevent#installing-from-github
25. cython: what? when? how?
26. what cython? Python → machine code
27. when cython? let C handle the bottleneck
28. how cython? ...and now, source code
29. speed of C + syntax of Python? cython everything!
30. pycuda: numbers/matrices/math anyone?
31. what about graphics?
32. cuda comes from nvidia
33. gpu parallelism + syntax of Python? pycuda everything!
34. take optimization and benchmarking with grains of salt. lots of it. experimental set-ups vary greatly from real-world environments.