[Python-Dev] default of returning None hurts performance?

[Raymond Hettinger]

> I was just wondering if a bytecode for a superinstruction of the common
> sequence:
>
> 6 POP_TOP
> 7 LOAD_CONST 0 (None)
> 10 RETURN_VALUE
>
> might be worth it.

[Collin Winter]
> I doubt it. You'd save a bit of stack manipulation, but since this
> will only appear at the end of a function, I'd be skeptical that this
> would make any macrobenchmarks (statistically) significantly faster.

I concur with Collin.  And since it appears only at the end of a function,
the optimization doesn't help inner-loops in a function (where most of
the time usually spent).


Raymond