How can some really large services (like Dropbox) afford to use Python as a primary language, if it’s one to two orders of magnitude slower than other, compiled languages?
9th December 2012
My answer to How can some really large services (like Dropbox) afford to use Python as a primary language, if it’s one to two orders of magnitude slower than other, compiled languages? on Quora
Because raw language speed often doesn’t matter that much. In the case if Dropbox the client software spends most of its time waiting for bits to load from the network or from disk. Most large websites spend their time waiting for the database. You can’t speed up network or disk performance by using a faster language.
More recent articles
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 is probably the "best coding model in the world" (at least for now) - 29th September 2025
- I think "agent" may finally have a widely enough agreed upon definition to be useful jargon now - 18th September 2025
- My review of Claude's new Code Interpreter, released under a very confusing name - 9th September 2025