I use cpython. I'm accustomed (from c++/gcc) to a style of coding that is highly readable, making the assumption that the compiler will do good things to optimize the code despite the style in which it's written. For example, I assume constants are removed from loops. In general, an entity is defined as close to the point of usage as possible.
I don't know to what extent these kind of optimizations are available to cpython. For example, are constant calculations removed from loops? How about functions? Is there a significant cost to putting a function def inside a loop rather than outside? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
