[NCLUG] RE: [Python-Dev] Judy for replacing internal dictionaries?

[Tim Peters]

I can only say that we've measured 25% speedups on many platforms after
switching to Vladimir's small-block allocator, which he designed after
months of studying memory traces of Python's memory use (it's not a "general
purpose" allocator, it's highly tuned to Python's specific needs).

This includes platforms with a modern glibc, where it seems all too easy to
provoke the system *free()* into seemingly quadratic-time behavior when
freeing gazillions of small blocks.  Speedups in those cases are basically
unmeasurable, because few people are willing to wait an hour for their
program to shut down <0.1 wink>.  Note that Python programs have an
extremely high rate of dynamic memory throughput, and I doubt Judy provokes
that behavior to nearly the extent that Python programs do.