python speed

[Luis M. Gonzalez]

Pypy is not the only promisory project we have for seeing Python
running like compiled languages.

Shed Skin is already a quite usable Python-to-C++ compiler which, in
version 0.5.1, can actually compile many python scripts to fully
optimized stand-alone executables.
Next version will probably support the use of the standard python
library and many, many exciting enhancements.

The main difference between these two projects is that while PYPY aims
to support 100% of python semantics including (all its dynamic
features) on top of a virtual machine. It uses type inference for
static compilation and just-in-time techniques.
On the other hand, Shed Skin is purely a static compiler that
translates python to c++ and then compiles to a stand alone executable.
It will never support the most dynamic features of Python, but in most
cases, it only requires to restrict our coding style a little bit to
avoid these features and produce highly optimized code.

http://shedskin.sf.net
http://shed-skin.blogspot.com/