Ali Çehreli:
Can that 'i = something' expression be monkey-patched in Python? If so, it could have side-effects to make the program change semantics like Russel Winder means.
Right. And even PyPy isn't a compiler. Python is interpreted. And at best JITted. In most cases you use Cpython, that is an interpreter. And in Python most optimizations are dangerous, because the language is very dynamic. If you look for performance it's better for you to look elsewhere (like Julia).
Bye, bearophile
