Why does Python sometimes take so long to start on Windows?


Python is a very popular programming language among the Developers and very easy to understand. Its syntax is also very simple to understand, like JAVA and C. But this popular language has some problems and one of the major problems is that it takes so long to start.

There can be so many reasons for being slow in Windows

  • Maybe the system configuration is not identical, particular for python.

  • Malware virus slowing the window system.

  • Too many applications running on the window system so python is not getting the proper resources.

Slow Execution problem

As you know python is slower than languages like JAVA, C and C++, these all are statically typed languages even python is also slower than dynamically typed languages like JavaScript. Python is a Dynamically typed language, so we do not need to specify variables with data type while assigning the value. But in statically typed language required to specify the variable data type so at runtime in python execution compiler checks the data type and allocates the memory to variable according to given value and that's take time to execution of program but for statically typed language every variable is early specified in code, so they don't take much time for execution.

GIL limits the execution

GIL stands for Global interpreter lock; it is a type of process lock. GIL is part of multithreading programming It allows only one thread at the state of execution. Even if the system has more than one core in the CPU and is working in multi thread architecture. That's why GIL limits the execution time in python. Python has many interpreter like Cpython, PyPy, Jython you can try them all if you want.

Consuming more memory

Sometimes code takes too much memory. Maybe a programmer using many variables or any other data structure. So if we are using too much memory, the compiler takes time to allocate the memory to variables and data structures thus it takes time to execute also it acquires large memory.

Iteration time

In some codes we used many loops to iterate over any data structures. Also some algorithms take too much time like some sorting algorithms. Also programmers may write the same code, which it uses most of the time in program. These time consuming algorithms and repetition of code lines force the compiler to take more time to show the output.

So these are maybe some reasons which make the python too long to start.

And now are some steps you can take to make the python executable fast in your system.

  • Use a compatible system which has identical configuration for python.

  • Try to use less memory or use memory efficient data structures.

  • Write optimized code so it becomes time efficient.

  • Make your computer malwares and viruses free.

  • Don't run so many applications in the background if your system configuration is low because it causes more resource usage.

  • And sometimes there may be some bugs which make it long to start.

Updated on: 03-Nov-2022

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