Discover why 'if not mylist' is twice as fast as 'len(mylist) == 0' by examining CPython's VM instructions and object memory access patterns.
  • @uis@lemm.eeEnglish
    16•6 days ago

    There are decades of articles on c++ optimizations, that say “use empty() instead of size()”, which is same as here.

    • @dreugeworst@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5•5 days ago

      except for c++ it was just to avoid a single function call, not extra indirection. also on modern compilers size() will get inlined and ultimate instructions generated by the compiler will likely be the same