[Python-Dev] Python startup time: String objects

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 10:25 AM 3/25/04 -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > Armin suggested to remove marshal entirely and use pickle
> > for storing compiled byte code. It works fine with the version
> > of pickle that ships with Stackless, but is unfortunately slower
> > than marshal.
>
>Even with cPickle?
>
>I'm still worried about your patch, because it changes all uses of
>marchal, not just how code objects are marshalled.  The marshal module
>*is* used by other apps...

Perhaps adding an optional protocol argument to the dump function would do 
the trick?  The default behavior would be the current behavior, and folks 
who want the speed/compactness at the cost of compatibility would be free 
to pass the argument.