What about using PyPy? You'll probably see a significant improvement in these benchmarks. You should also give it a shot in Node which I expect to be about on par with PyPy, but without the GIL.
If anyone wants to be surprised by optimization, a great way to do it is to look at all the cases where, even though Python is slower than C, the Python interpreter written in Python is faster than the Python interpreter written in C.
Also, if we're going to suggest 'write it in another language' approaches, rewrite it in Golang. I detest writing in Golang but once you get the hang of things you can get to the point where your code only takes twice the time to write and 2% of the time (and memory) to run.
Totally, I'm a big fan of statically typed, compiled languages; especially when the codebase is large and/or there are a lot of contributors. I chose the Node example because I feel like it offers the same "ease-of-use" that draws people to Python.
> get to the point where your code only takes twice the time to write and 2% of the time (and memory) to run.
100%. Sometimes this matters, sometimes it doesn't, but if we're talking about "smart performance hacks" this is definitely a top contender.
I work on a Python project and I really wish that it supported multi-threading. If I rewrote it, I would prioritize that feature in the target language.
