Why is (my) Python so slow?
I've been a Perl guy for over 10 years but a friend convinced me to try Python and told me how much faster it is than Perl. So just for kicks I ported an app I wrote in Perl to Python and found that it runs about 3x slower. Initially my friend told me that I must have done it wrong, so I rewrote and refactored until I could rewrite and refactor no more and ... it's still a lot slower. So I did a simple test:

    i = 0
    j = 0

    while (i < 100000000):
        i = i + 1
        j = j + 1

    print j

$ time python python.py   
100000000

real	0m48.100s  
user	0m45.633s  
sys	0m0.043s

    my $i = 0;
    my $j = 0;

    while ($i < 100000000) {
        ++$i; // also tested $i = $i + 1 to be fair, same result
        ++$j;
    }

    print $j;

$ time perl perl.pl   
100000000

real	0m24.757s  
user	0m22.341s  
sys	0m0.029s

Just under twice as slow, which doesn't seem to reflect any of the benchmarks I've seen ... is this a problem with my installation or is Python really that much slower than Perl?
Why is (my) Python so slow?
===

I've been a Perl guy for over 10 years but a friend convinced me to try Python and told me how much faster it is than Perl. So just for kicks I ported an app I wrote in Perl to Python and found that it runs about 3x slower. Initially my friend told me that I must have done it wrong, so I rewrote and refactored until I could rewrite and refactor no more and ... it's still a lot slower. So I did a simple test:

    i = 0
    j = 0

    while (i < 100000000):
        i = i + 1
        j = j + 1

    print j

$ time python python.py   
100000000

real	0m48.100s  
user	0m45.633s  
sys	0m0.043s

    my $i = 0;
    my $j = 0;

    while ($i < 100000000) {
        ++$i; // also tested $i = $i + 1 to be fair, same result
        ++$j;
    }

    print $j;

$ time perl perl.pl   
100000000

real	0m24.757s  
user	0m22.341s  
sys	0m0.029s

Just under twice as slow, which doesn't seem to reflect any of the benchmarks I've seen ... is this a problem with my installation or is Python really that much slower than Perl?