Populating a dictionary, fast

[Yu-Xi Lim]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> (2) More memory will help avoid paging. If you can't get more memory, try 
> more virtual memory. It will still be slow, but at least the operating 
> system doesn't have to try moving blocks around as much.
> 

Based on his previous post, it would seem he has 7GB of RAM (with about 
5GB free) and 2GB of swap. I don't think RAM is the issue.

Maybe there's something wrong with his specific Python installation. 
What version is it and was it compiled by him?