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Software is slow because of bad design, not slow languages (www.seangoedecke.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] -5 points 1 week ago* (10 children)

Yeah nah, Lua runs circles around Python both at runtime and especially at startup. I've made me some desktop automation scripts in Lua to call from Alfred, I had to recheck that I didn't leave static test data in there instead of calling the script, because the results were appearing instantly.

Recently had to develop a Python project, the tests took at least ten seconds to start each single time. This is while I made over a hundred tests for my module and re-ran them after every change.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago* (5 children)

    Recently had to develop a Python project, the tests took at least ten seconds to start each single time. This is while I made over a hundred tests for my module and re-ran them after every change.

    Python is dog slow, but if your tests are taking 10 seconds to start (not even run!), then something is catastrophically wrong with your setup. For comparison, for one of my projects, it takes a total of 12 seconds to run nox on a clean slate, which involves setting up venvs for five major versions of Python, installing the package and its dependencies in each, and finally running the 1500 test test-suite five times

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

    It wasn't my project. Afaict it's a standard pytest setup with the Litestar framework (unused in my tests) and an in-memory mock Postgre transaction with like five records per test, so choose for yourself which part of this is 'catastrophically wrong'. However, I can indeed agree that most of it is trash.

    Same approach with dozens upon dozens of tests worked snappily as heck in PHP, haven't yet tried it with my beloved Lua.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Then its the Test environment that is slow, not Python.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    It is, yes. But I also commented on Lua vs Python, and if you even try to time them, Lua scripts will be finished before Python starts up. Lua is so fast that people mostly don't bother making libs for it in C, the fucking interpreter is quick enough for folks to skip any kind of compiling and just write libraries in the interpreted language. Oh, didn't I mention? The startup thing is with the interpreter, without any kind of bytescript, JIT and such.

    In the same vein, the K and Q languages and the KDB+ database by Arthur Whitney are so goddamn fast at array processing that they're used in banking for decades despite their extremely inscrutable syntax that would shear any Python programmer's head clean off. They just stay in the cache at most times. And they are also interpreted, not compiled at any time.

    Python suffers from the same shit as Java, it has to initialize hundreds of objects before the main program even starts, and then it creates hundreds more. Neither Lua nor JavaScript do that. PHP does to some extent, but the fucker is so fast that it can recreate the entire runtime context on every single request and then drop all of it afterwards, and it's still quicker than Python.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    The use case for Lua is very different from Python. It's not directly comparable, as Lua is barebones.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago

    Lua is directly comparable to Python, as it's incredible at quasi-interactive scripting. Python actually fits better when startup time doesn't matter, while a Lua script can start and finish a dozen times before a Python process just turns on.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Lua also doesn't provide everything Python does and has a totally different use case.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago* (2 children)

    Oh really? Well guess what, that's a huge benefit for Lua because its entire total size is around 500 KB. It's loaded into memory and executed start to finish faster than you blink. If you need a ‘standard library’, just use Penlight. As I already mentioned, vast majority of libraries for Lua are written in... Lua itself, because it's so goddamn fast. I'm using Fennel, the Lua Lisp that's transcribed on-the-fly, and it's still faster than Python. Lua is great for interactive tasks like desktop automation, e.g. with Alfred, Hammerspoon (which latter uses Lua throughout), or for scripting in Termux on the phone where Python would kill the memory immediately.

    Lua's problems with the absence of popular libraries aren't because of any language issues (even the lack of null can be dealt with), but solely due to its non-adoption in the masses. It is very popular as an embedded language in gaming, though, and that's not a coincidence, because it fits that niche precisely because of its small size and extraordinary speed.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Well guess what, that’s a huge benefit for Lua because its entire total size is around 500 KB.

    Filesize doesn't matter, if the functionality is missing. Lua is just not a direct comparison and replacement for Python. Penlight isn't standard library. In example if I want to write a commandline script, I better off doing it in Python. The language is much better to me, has better features, has a standard library builtin and is even installed in all Linux distributions.

    Lua is meant to be embedded into other applications, not meant to be used on its own.

    Lua’s problems with the absence of popular libraries aren’t because of any language issues (even the lack of null can be dealt with), but solely due to its non-adoption in the masses.

    Wrong. This is a design choice, because Lua isn't meant to be used by its own. The embedded environment is meant to provide the functionality. In example in Neovim they provide their own functionality embedded within the editor. I can't use that script on a different environment.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    Filesize doesn’t matter, if the functionality is missing.

    Lua is meant to be embedded into other applications, not meant to be used on its own.

    Wrong. Lua is meant to be used on its own, because it's so freaking good. It provides everything one needs to begin, while allowing for a wide array of libraries to be made. But I know you haven't made any serious number of scripts in either language, simply because you claim 'filesize doesn't matter', while Lua is so fast partly because of its size.

    This is a design choice, because Lua isn’t meant to be used by its own.

    Wrong again. Lua is amazing on its own, but third-party libraries make it even better.

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