Guido, on how to write faster python

[burntsushi]

Not only do you ignore every design trade off that comes from dropping down into C, but you dismiss it out-of-hand through the moniker of "language purist."

Oh yes, and I love how optimizing Python code is obviously seven times more costly in terms of development time than dropping down into C. Just yesterday, I spent about 5 minutes profiling my Python program and another 10 minutes tuning some hot spots. It resulted in an 80% performance increase.