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Python Performance: Why 'if not list' is 2x Faster Than Using len()
(blog.codingconfessions.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
People seem to be unaware that python has bindings for lower-level languages like C. In fact, people have been heavily using resource intensive libraries implemented in C (e.g. numpy, scipy, pandas, uwsgi).
Also, Python interpreter performance has come a long way.