Although it's not quite what you mean there is Cython - it's a Python extension to Distutils that lets you convert Python code to C & compile it. We actually u

Although it's not quite what you mean there is Cython - it's a Python extension to Distutils that lets you convert Python code to C & compile it. We actually use this in the way you describe - using the interpreter as our test bed but compile it via Cython (for code protection and speed reasons) on deployment.