wronk

Overview of Python Virtual Environments

This guide is targetted at intermediate or expert users who want low-level control over their Python environments.

When you're working on multiple coding projects, you might want a couple different version of Python and/or modules installed. This helps keep each workflow in its own sandbox instead of trying to juggle multiple projects (each with different dependencies) on your system's version of Python. The guide here covers one way to handle multiple Python versions and Python environments on your own (i.e., without a package manager like conda). See the Using the workflow section to view the end result.

h/t @sharkinsspatial for linking me to the perfect cartoon

jboner

Latency Comparison Numbers (~2012)
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L1 cache reference                           0.5 ns
Branch mispredict                            5   ns
L2 cache reference                           7   ns                      14x L1 cache
Mutex lock/unlock                           25   ns
Main memory reference                      100   ns                      20x L2 cache, 200x L1 cache
Compress 1K bytes with Zippy             3,000   ns        3 us
Send 1K bytes over 1 Gbps network       10,000   ns       10 us
Read 4K randomly from SSD*             150,000   ns      150 us          ~1GB/sec SSD