It's not _that_ surprising. The CPython developers have never historically prioritised performance. Simplicity and readability of implementation have typically

It's not _that_ surprising. The CPython developers have never historically prioritised performance. Simplicity and readability of implementation have typically been higher priorities. In fact that's a key quality of Python in general that development speed is more important than runtime performance. PHP had a similar performance binge about 6 years ago which is why it tends to run circles around similar class interpreted languages these days