Is & faster than % when checking for odd numbers?

Question

To check for odd and even integer, is the lowest bit checking more efficient than using the modulo?

>>> def isodd(num):
        return num & 1 a         


        

Answer 1

Apart from the evil optimization, it takes away the very idiomatic "var % 2 == 0" that every coder understands without looking twice. So this is violates pythons zen as well for very little gain.

Furthermore a = b and True or False has been superseded for better readability by

return True if num & 1 else False