map del efficiency python2.2 and 2.1

[Tim Peters]

[John Hunter]
> pymalloc to the rescue.  I rebuilt 2.2 --with-pymalloc and the
> interminable delay was vanquished.

Cool!  It will be even better in 2.3 (see other posts in this thread).

> Now where do I go to get a deep understanding of my platform's (glibc
> 2.2.2) implementation of free and why it behaves so badly?

Study the source code, watch it in a debugger until your eyes bleed, and/or
try to engage its current maintainer(s) in discussion.  Python grew its own
pymalloc because platform mallocs are a diverse, finicky, and ever-moving
target -- it would truly be a full-time job to keep up-to-date on the subtle
quirks and disaster-modes of all of them, but now we only have to understand
ours.  And that's only a half-time job <wink>.