[Andrew M. Kuchling]
... A performance improvement project would definitely be a good idea for 1.6, and a good sub-topic for python-dev.
To the extent that optimization requires uglification, optimization got pushed beyond Guido's comfort zone back around 1.4 -- little has made it in since then. Not griping; I'm just trying to avoid enduring the same discussions for the third to twelfth times <wink>. Anywho, on the theory that a sweeping speedup patch has no chance of making it in regardless, how about focusing on one subsystem? In my experience, the speed issue Python gets beat up the most for is the relative slowness of function calls. It would be very good if eval_code2 somehow or other could manage to invoke a Python function without all the hair of a recursive C call, and I believe Guido intends to move in that direction for Python2 anyway. This would be a good time to start exploring that seriously. inspirationally y'rs - tim