Python if vs try-except

Question

I was wondering why the try-except is slower than the if in the program below.

def tryway():
    try:
        while True:
            alist.pop()
    except         


        

Answer 1

Not sure but I think it's something like this: the while true follow the normal instruction line which means the processor can pipeline and do all sorts of nice things. Exceptions jump straight through all that so the VM need to handle it specially, and that takes time.