[bjoli]

On a similar note: Has cpython implemented tagged pointers yet? I remember there being a lot more discussion about boxed types when Java sometimes boxed primitive types (at the expense of performance).

Why python gets away with it I don't know. Back when I still did python, integers below 256 and above -3 (?) were "cached" and had no boxing overhead. In 3.6 that was still the case. Either cpython lacks tagged pointers or has the worst tagging scheme in history.