Not at all. Some of those number are very important: - Set membership check is 19.0 ns, list is 3.85 μs. Knowing what data structure to use for the job is par

Not at all. Some of those number are very important: - Set membership check is 19.0 ns, list is 3.85 μs. Knowing what data structure to use for the job is paramount. - Write 1KB file is 35.1 μs but 1MB file is only 207 μs. Knowing the implications of I/O trade off is essential. - sum() 1,000 integers is only 1,900 ns: Knowing to leverage the stdlib makes all the difference compared to manual loop. Etc. A few years ago I did a Python rewrite of a big clients code base. They had a massive calculation process that took 6 servers 2 hours. We got it down to 1 server, 10 minutes, and it was not even the goal of the mission, just the side effect of using Python correctly. In the end, quadratic behavior is quadratic behavior.