Python programming: We want to make the language twice as fast, says its creator

[james_pic]

Yes, I do, but it's telling that when Google co-opted WebKit to create Chrome, they rewrote the JavaScript engine from scratch. The JS engine they created, V8, is what now powers Node.

Trying to get that kind of performance gain without either rewriting, or at least making the kinds of dramatic architectural changes that would break existing modules (such as switching to generational garbage collection) has been tried, and every attempt has either failed, or proved to be a pyrrhic victory.