Psyco is a Python extension module which can speed up the execution of any Python code.

from the Psyco site:

"Think of Psyco as a kind of just-in-time (JIT) compiler, a little bit like what exists for other languages, that emit machine code on the fly instead of interpreting your Python program step by step. The difference with the traditional approach to JIT compilers is that Psyco writes several version of the same blocks (a block is a bit of a function), which are optimized by being specialized to some kinds of variables (a "kind" can mean a type, but it is more general). The result is that your unmodified Python programs run faster"

I have been working on some Python projects recently where Pysco has given me a a really substantial performance increase. The type of work I am doing mostly involves statistcal analysis of large numerical data sets.. array math.. percentiles.. time-series.. etc, etc.

To use it, all I do is copy Psyco to my system (to Python's Lib/site-packages), and add the following to the top of my python source file:

Thats all ...

... or even better; wrap it in a try/except so your program still runs on systems without Psyco installed.