[kevincox]

Even if something is slow there is utility to have it run faster. Sure, Python will never be with for the most demanding performance requirements but that doesn't mean we should deny people performance.

There are lots of use case where Python's performance is acceptable but a 10x speed boost would be much appreciated. Or where Python's performance is not acceptable but it would be if I could fully utilize my 32 cores.

For example look at Instagram. They run tons of Python but need to run many processes on each machine wasting memory. I'm sure they would love to save that memory, the environment would too. Sure, they could rewrite their service in C but that is most likely not the best tradeoff.