def s0( samples ):
    return len(samples) # sum(x**0 for x in samples …

Read this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emc/2014/06/26/the-hottest-jobs-in-it-training-tomorrows-data-scientists/ Interesting subject areas: Statistics, Machine Learning, Algorithms. I've had questions about data science from folks who (somehow) felt that calculus and differential equations were important parts of data science. I couldn't figure out how they decided that diffeq's …

This is (was?) an epic web site: http://projecteuler.net/about Currently, they're struggling with a security problem. http://forum.projecteuler.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3591 Years ago, I found the site and quickly reached Level 2 by solving a flood of easy problems. Recently, a recruiter strongly …

A library had unit tests that ran for almost 600 seconds. Two small changes dropped the run time to 26 seconds.

I was amazed.

Step 1. I turned on the cProfile. I added two methods to the slowest unit test module.

def profile():
    import cProfile
    cProfile.run( 'main()', 'the_slow_module.prof' …

For the 757 Python Meetup group, someone proposed looking at some Python code they had which was slow. The code implemented a variation on the Elo chess rating system. It applied the ratings to other sports, and used the points scored as well as basic win/lose/tie to work …

Read this first: "There is something I find interesting about online discussions around performance issues..." It's about Stack Overflow, specifically. Apparently, someone didn't get their question answered and decided it was better to gripe than to rewrite the question.

Let's look at their response in pieces.

"people try to gang …

Years ago, I was working with a client who was implementing their first web site.

Well, actually, it wasn't their first. It was their third. But their first two were haphazard "we hope this works" kind of web sites. They relied on third-party security and were pretty sure they were …

See Configuration Options in Code or INI Files? . Also, see Python as Configuration Language .

Here's some of the argument.

• Editing. Which is easier? Which is more expressive? Some say that Text (INI format especially) is easier -- but I don't see what. Python is just as easy as INI, and has …

See this question on Python objects deleting themselves . There was some fundamental confusion about objects, deletion and garbage collection.

Some additional material was posted in an answer (not in the question, where it belongs) making it a little hard to go from question to answers. The original poster's non-answer had …