Can you make this faster?

[Delaney, Timothy C (Timothy)]

Andrea Griffini wrote:

> What however I find depressing is thinking that in so
> many places the python runtime is wasting time looking
> for something I'd never do (like replacing "len" or "str").
> And for a function like the one the OP posted looks like
> we're talking about more than 50% of the time being spent
> doing those pointless searches.
> 
> I didn't check python sources, is there a timestamping
> for namespaces making it possible to cache lookups ?
> Was this tried and didn't pay off ?

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/277940

Tim Delaney