Automatic, portable optimization of global access

[Paul Rubin]

python at rcn.com (Raymond Hettinger) writes:
> """ Binding should be applied selectively to those functions where
> speed is important and dynamic updates are not desired (i.e. the
> globals do not change). In more dynamic environments, a more
> conservative approach is to set builtin_only to True so that only the
> builtins get optimized (this includes functions like len(), exceptions
> like IndexError, and constants like True or False).
> """

Well, it's possible that builtins get changed too.  I've used "len" as
a variable a few times without realizing that I was clobbering a builtin.

Maybe the compiler could detect when it's ok to run the optimizer, and
automatically run it when it can.