Python -O won’t magically make every script faster, but in the right workloads it’s a free win—here’s how to test it safely.

HP calculators, slide rules, and Forth all have something in common: reverse polish notation or RPN. Admittedly, slide rules don’t really have RPN, but you work problems on them the same way you do ...

Python is powerful, versatile, and programmer-friendly, but it isn’t the fastest programming language around. Some of Python’s speed limitations are due to its default implementation, CPython, being ...