parse-time optimizations

[Skip Montanaro]

    Thomas> But people are telling you it wouldn't be better :) You can use
    Thomas> bytecodehacks to prove to us that it would. It certainly would
    Thomas> be a lot more convincing :)

As the timbot would probably tell you, optimization is sort of a death of a
thousand cuts type of thing.  You aren't going to die from any one cut, but
after making several cuts you do wind up with a sizable pool of blood. ;-)

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