[Python-Dev] Algoritmic Complexity Attack on Python (original) (raw)

Jeff Epler jepler@unpythonic.net
Fri, 30 May 2003 15:00:21 -0500

On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 11🔞14AM -0500, Scott A Crosby wrote:

On

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/hash/CrosbyWallachUsenixSec2003/LengthEffects.png UHASH exceeds the performance of perl's hash function, which is simpler than your own.

I notice that you say "with strings longer than around 44-bytes, UHASH dominates all the other hash functions, due in no small part to its extensive performance tuning and hand-coded assembly routines." [emphasis mine] It's all well and good for people who can run your hand-coded VAX assembly, but when Intel's 80960* comes out and people start running Unix on it, won't they be forced to code your hash function all over again? Since everybody has hopes for Python beyond the VAX (heck, in 20 years VAX might have as little as 5% of the market -- anything could happen) there has been a consious decision not to hand-code anything in assembly in Python.

Jeff