Where do .pyc files come from?

[tooper]

Yes, these are bytecode files.
If you run "python -o", you should also get .pyo files for optimized
bytecode. As long as you do not modify the source code, python directly
reuse the bytecode (that's also a way to distribute script without
source code to avoid your users fiddling in thecode and make it not
work properly - even if any advanced user will know how to revert back
to source code)