[Python-Dev] Store startup modules as C structures for 20%+ startup speed improvement?

[Eric V. Smith]

On 9/19/2018 9:25 PM, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Sep 19, 2018, at 20:34, Gregory P. Smith <greg at krypto.org> wrote:
> 
>> There's ongoing work to rewrite zipimport.c in python using zipfile itself
> 
> Great timing!  Serhiy’s rewrite of zipimport in Python has just landed in 3.8, although it doesn’t use zipfile.  What’s in git now is a pretty straightforward translation from the original C, so it could use some clean ups (and I think Serhiy is planning that).  So the problem you describe should be easier to fix now in 3.8.  It would be interesting to see if we can squeeze more performance and better behavior out of it now that it’s in Python.

You don't hear "better performance" and "now that it's in Python" 
together very often! Although I agree with your point: it's like how we 
tried and failed to make progress on namespace packages when import was 
written in C, and then once it was in Python it was easy to add the 
functionality.

Eric