Hash Key Generation in Python Vs. Oracle

Hi Folks

I was looking at the following post for Hash Key generation, it is using MD5 -

http://scn.sap.com/message/14330293

I have following  two questions in relation to above post,

I did not want to post to above thread as the question was already answered, hence posting a new discussion.

1 Is this internally calling Oracle.

2. Will Oracle code be faster then Python code. If not why  ?

Poonam