Why not a Python compiler?

[castironpi at gmail.com]

On Feb 10, 7:29 am, Stefan Behnel <stefan... at behnel.de> wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > On Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:11:09 +0000, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote:
>
> >> On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:12:29 -0800, Ryszard Szopa wrote:
>
> >>> Expressing simple loops as C for loops...
> >> You mean simple loops like ``for i in xrange(1000):``?  How should the
> >> compiler know what object is bound to the name `xrange` when that loop
> >> is executed?
>
> > Assuming the aim is to optimize for speed rather than memory, the
> > solution is for the compiler to create something like this pseudo-code:
>
> > if xrange is Python's built-in xrange:
> >     execute optimized for-loop at C-like speed
> > else:
> >     execute unoptimized normal loop at Python speed
>
> > (In case it's not obvious, the decision of which branch to take is made
> > at run time, not compile time.)
>
> > I understand that is more or less what psycho already does.
>
> ... and Cython, when iterating over lists, for example. That's one of the
> reasons why looping is so much faster in Cython than in Pyrex.
>
> Stefan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

There's always the Visitor pattern.

in xrange(10000).for x:
    loop_of_x_at_forlike_speed()

Do identifiers get hashed once at compile/ definition-execution time,
or every time they're encountered?  This could be fast...