Hi all!

John Maloney <jmaloney at media.mit.edu> wrote:
> Last I checked, Squeak was quite a bit faster than Python.

I very recently translated pystone (Python's equivalence of
tinyBenchmark I guess) to Squeak and also posted about it on this list,
and published it as Sqystone on SM.

Without going into details it showed a factor of 2 over Python (regular
C Python), but that was with a Squeak VM that was compiled with "more
opt flags" than Python. Also Python has Psyco (a compiler) as an
alternative which makes it pretty darn fast.

So... Squeak has an edge - but it isn't large anymore. I remember a few
years back it was about 4-5 times.

And one other thing:

IMHO the recent most impressive work towards a FAST Squeak is Exupery by
Bryce Kampjes. I will not explain what it is - but it already shows
impressive results on the x86 platform.

Finally, having said all the above - we all know Squeak is plenty fast
enough for most everything and if not - a plugin saves the day. :)

regards, Göran