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Ok, I have used the word python in the question, but it well could be language agnostic in that: If a language X has a well optimised compiler targeting assembly and an OS is written in that language, then will it compete favorably with C in benchmarks?

This comes from two conceptions I have (could be wrong):

  • Languages are defined by grammar rules (syntax-semantics); they themselves are independent of performance. Performance is a function of implementation.
  • C is often efficient because the most popular OS(es) are written in it - so limited wrapping and unwrapping - and it compiles to (these days) well optimized assembly code.

And, yes, before some of us pull out guns, I understand and appreciate that in certain situations some languages may outperform C, but by and large C does better than most languages in most situations.

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Relevant: c2.com/cgi/wiki?AsFastAsCee –  Benjamin Bannier Jul 20 '12 at 17:59
It would be really hard to implement a complete dynamically typed language compiler which would statically eliminate all the overhead of the dynamic typing. –  SK-logic Jul 20 '12 at 17:59
Using more number of loops, nested loops, recursion, complex logic and functionality will slow down any program, written in any language. –  pandu Jul 23 '12 at 6:55

6 Answers 6

Theoretically speaking, for any idealized program there will be some set of assembly instructions that is the most efficient way to enact that program. In theory, any language could potentially be compiled to these ideal machine instructions, given a smart enough compiler.

Practically speaking, no, there is no compiler that would turn python into machine code that is as fast as an optimized C program doing the same thing. What's more, it's unlikely that such a compiler can be written, because python doesn't have primitives for low level things like pointers. In order to make the code optimally fast, the compiler would have to figure out the intentions of the code before it could translate it into low level commands, which is a ridiculously hard problem.

That's not to say it can't come close. Maybe.

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I wouldn't say it couldn't be written but it would take a tremendous effort to write an intermediary that can interpret what to do with those values, low level pointers, etc. It COULD be done but I suspect it would take a tremendous effort and compile times would be pretty slow with all of the analysis... –  Rig Jul 20 '12 at 17:55
@Rig In effect, the complier would have to run the program with a significant amount of debugging and profiling to see how a given variable is used and then select the most optimal representation of that (is this string acting as a char*? or is it really just an enum as an index into a hash?) And then one gets a language such as befunge or some parts of perl that make it a very, very difficult problem. –  MichaelT Jul 20 '12 at 18:06
Difficult but not impossible :P –  Rig Jul 20 '12 at 18:39
Doesn't Scala analyze the code to decide if an Object such as Int should be treated as an Object or Primitive? –  Paul Jul 20 '12 at 19:43
@MichaelT: I've heard of a Scheme compiler (Stalin Scheme) that essentially does just that. Scheme is an incredibly flexible and dynamic language, but given enough analysis and access to the whole program at compile time lets you produce very efficient code. Of course, Satlin was just a research project, but I imagine something like that could also be written for Python. It would, however, be prohibitively difficult to actually write. –  Tikhon Jelvis Jul 20 '12 at 21:38

In general, most block-structured statically-typed languages will compile into very similar machine code (most machine architectures provide support for HLL concepts like for loops and switch statements). The problem with Python, as others have noted, is its dynamic nature. This means more run-time checks and a bigger run-time library, which means slower execution, there's just no way around that. The doesn't mean it's not possible to write an OS in it, but you're never going to get the raw performance that simpler languages like C or FORTRAN can provide.

What would be interesting to see would be "systems Python", with support for pointers and possibly with some restrictions on the language's dynamic features to permit more efficient compiled forms. I'm not familiar enough with Python to know how feasible that is, but there have been similar things done before.

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Instead of compiling to assembly, lets take a more practical approach (that do exist).

There are programs such as f2c and p2c that compile fortran and pascal to c. The question is then "can these compilers write better code than you can?" In p2c (for example), it is necessary to write additional code in C to handle string processing.

This translates to assembly too. Any time there is something that the language is doing for you, under the covers, there is the likely hood that a programmer with understanding of the structures and algorithms necessary for that would write more compact (and faster) code in C.


Lets consider a dynamic typed language that has strings and ints, a "+" operator that is thoroughly overloaded and a print command.

var foo = 3;
var bar = "a";
var qux = bar + foo;
print qux;

The C version of this program would be:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    int foo = 3;
    char *bar = "a";
    char qux[3];

(Yes, I know that isn't optimal and is a contrived example) Which compiles to the following assembly on my machine (gcc -S -O9 foo.c)

    .file   "foo.c"
    .string "a"
    .string "%s%d"
    .string "%s"
    .p2align 4,,15
.globl main
    .type   main, @function
    pushq   %rbx
    .cfi_def_cfa_offset 16
    movl    $3, %ecx
    movl    $.LC0, %edx
    movl    $.LC1, %esi
    xorl    %eax, %eax
    subq    $16, %rsp
    .cfi_def_cfa_offset 32
    movq    %rsp, %rdi
    .cfi_offset 3, -16
    call    sprintf
    movq    %rsp, %rsi
    movl    $.LC2, %edi
    xorl    %eax, %eax
    call    printf
    addq    $16, %rsp
    .cfi_def_cfa_offset 16
    popq    %rbx
    .cfi_def_cfa_offset 8
    .size   main, .-main
    .ident  "GCC: (SUSE Linux) 4.5.1 20101208 [gcc-4_5-branch revision 167585]"
    .section    .comment.SUSE.OPTs,"MS",@progbits,1
    .string "Ospwg"
    .section    .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits

At this point, the question is what would it take to write a compiler that would be able to analyze the dynamic code and generate that assembly. While it might be possible with that extremely limited language, once you start adding more complexity to the language, a translation into something closer to the machine requires more and more code to handle the dynamic typing, or its own runtime (objective C takes this approach) - in either case, it will be slower than something written in C that doesn't need to have that overhead.

Or, the compiler has analyzed all the execution paths of the code (for the dynamic language) which I believe is equivalent to solving the halting problem.

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Someone can write "more compact (and faster) code in C." Why? –  check123 Jul 20 '12 at 17:23
Also the case you present is a little tricky because such 'intermediate' compilers are yet to see maturity in generating well optimized code. –  check123 Jul 20 '12 at 17:24
@check123 Consider taking a perl scalar into assembly. One would need to check if it is to be used in a string context, or a float context, or an int context, or etc... For memory management similar issues come up - could a C programmer with the understanding of the domain better manage the memory with free/malloc than a language with a garbage collection? Languages that make it easier to write code inherently do things behind the programmer's back which are not necessarily optimal for all situations compared to the C code the programmer would write to do the same. –  MichaelT Jul 20 '12 at 17:33

I just read an article saying that llvm is designed to have a front-end for any language (ie Python) and has a common optimizer/generator. So you could write a front-end... So it could be as fast. (even faster if you believe HotSpot numbers you can get even faster)

Java is actually a pretty good example. It's normally byte-code, but there are several ways to compile it to native code.

What you might run into is the problems with accessing devices, memory management, interupts, and such without adding some system specific additions.

I think you could take Linux as an example. There is a bunch of code that is common across platforms. That could probably be written in anything. But there is also system/device specific code. That would need a more system level language. And yes, you could probably find a way in Python to handle that.

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Hmm.. Then does direct memory access (pointers) make C a more system-level language? In case, if a language X has support for pointers, will your answer change? –  check123 Jul 20 '12 at 17:28
Java is an irrelevant example - it is a statically typed language. –  SK-logic Jul 20 '12 at 18:12
@SK-logic: One might argue that Java is more of a dynamic language when it comes to its implementation though, given how it uses an intermediate interpreter and JIT compiler. –  hugomg Jul 20 '12 at 19:32
@check123 yes, if the obstacles could be overcome. I don't think Python would need to have direct pointers as implied since it handles that behind the scenes. Memory management in this case is MMU/virtual memory space type work. –  Paul Jul 20 '12 at 19:45
@SK-logic The point about java is that it is possible to improve performance with modern technologies.... –  Paul Jul 20 '12 at 19:46

No, it's never going to happen. Even if you performed a perfect reduction from Python to machine code, there are still things like Python creates all objects on the heap and such which must be translated for the program to execute correctly which are slower than a C program placing some or many objects on the stack. In addition, there will be dynamic types and lookups which cannot be statically inferred, for example.

It's quite impossible.

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C compiles to machine, not assembly. If python, or any other language, also compiled to the machine codes, then it would be just as fast (this also depends on how well the compiler optimizes, though).

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Thanks for the down vote. Now please tell me why my answer is wrong. I'm always up for learning something, and avoiding giving a bad answer in the future. –  Travis Jul 20 '12 at 17:42
Just because something compiles to assembly does not mean that the assembly written is optimal - even with a compiler that can optimize it. There is additional information in a statically typed language (this is an int, this is a char*) that would require additional code around it to coerce the data from one type to another as necessary. –  MichaelT Jul 20 '12 at 18:02
@Travis, assembly language is a syntax sugar for the machine code, you cannot oppose one to another. So your answer is just wrong. And needless to mention that the "Yes" part of your answer is pretty wrong too. –  SK-logic Jul 20 '12 at 18:14
"The simple answer is: Yes.": Then why is it that nobody took the time to write such a compiler? All Python programmers would profit from it. –  Giorgio Jul 20 '12 at 19:36
Travis, you don't understand. Just because CPU instructions are the outcome does not mean that they execute in a reasonable time, at all. There are numerous properties of Python which do not exist in C which would severely affect the speed of the resulting instructions. There probably isn't a reason why Python cannot compile to machine code. It just still wouldn't be anywhere near as fast as C. –  DeadMG Jul 20 '12 at 20:37

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