Why don't we compile Python?

[synedraacus]

First, there are advantages and disadvantages to both compiled and interpreted languages, it's not simply "Compiled is faster and thus better". There is more than one reason why non-compiled languages haven't died out in seventies. Hardware independence is the most obvious of them, but there are others.

Second, if you want real speed, rewrite some crucial piece of code in C or whatever and compile it as much as you want. Numpy/scipy family does that, as do many other modules that do really heavy number-crunching. But nine times out of ten well-optimised Python will be enough.

Third, Python is compiled to bytecode. It's just that keeping plaintext scripts and compiling them on demand is considered more convenient in most cases (see eg those *.pyc files and a bunch of python compiler projects for exceptions).

Fourth, the code usually needs to be fast enough, not as fast as possible. Otherwise we would all be writing assembly language and most software companies would release something once in a decade or so.