This is an idea that come out of the lazy loading modules idea. Larry Hastings mentioned what a good improvement this was for PHP. I think it would help a lot of Python too. Very many functions and classes are not actually needed but are instantiated anyhow. Back of napkin idea: Write AST transformer tool, change top-level functions and classes to be like properties (can use __class__ I guess) Transform is something like: # old code def inc(x): return x + 1 # transformed code def __make_inc(code=<code object bytes>): obj = eval(code) _ModuleClass.inc = obj # only do eval once return obj inc = property(__make_inc) Totally seat of pants idea but I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't work. It seems much more powerful than lazying loading modules. In the lazy module case, you load the whole module if any part is touched. Many modules only have a small fraction of their functions and classes actually used. If this transformer idea works, the standard Python compiler could be changed to do the above stuff, no transformer needed.