An important point missing from this article is that Python speed can be measured in two distinct ways -- how fast the code runs, and how fast the code gets written.<p>If a program needs to be up and running yesterday, then the fact that it's not as fast as C/C++ may not actually matter.<p>I think this issue should be mentioned more often in discussions of execution speed -- the time required to write the code in the first place. For that, Python excels.