Terry Reedy <tjre...@udel.edu> writes: > If the best C program for a problem takes 10 seconds or more, then > applying the same 1 minute limit to Python is insane, and contrary to > the promotion of good algorithm thinking.
The Euler problems are all designed to be doable in 1 minute or less and the Euler project started in 2001, when personal computers were probably 10x slower than they are today. So they shouldn't take more than 6 seconds on a modern computer if you're thoughtful. On a reasonable modern computer (maybe even a 2001 computer), they should all be doable in < 1 minute in python, probably well under. They can probably all be done in under 1 second in C. The "largest prime factor of 600851475143" problem we're discussing took 0.017 user cpu seconds in completely unoptimized python on my laptop using the second-most-naive algoritm possible, including loading the interpreter from the command line. Executing an empty file takes the same amount of time. The algorithm would probably be >10x faster in C with a little bit of tweaking. The problems are about math cleverness, not CPU resources. Some of them are pretty hard, but if your solution is taking more than a minute in Python, it means you should be looking for a better algorithm, not a faster language. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
