[Python-Dev] towards a faster Python

[Guido van Rossum]

> > I'm not sure how much resistance there would be in the community to
> > disallowing reassignment of builtin names though.  I don't think
> > I've ever reassigned a builtin name so I think it would be worth it.
> 
> I'm not sure quite what you mean here, but I had plenty of variables
> called `file' pre-2.2 (and probably still do).

Several standard library modules export a function named 'open' as
part of their APIs.  Arguments and variables named 'dir', 'str' or
'type' are common.  And so on.

Built-ins will always be the last namespace to be searched.  The goal
here is to move this search from run time to compile time.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)