> python code could be so much faster if it didn't have to assume everything could change at any time
Definitely, but then it wouldn't be Python. One of the core principles of Python's design is to be extremely dynamic, and that anything can change at any time.
There are many other, pretty good, strictly dynamically typed languages which work just as well if not better than Python, for many purposes.
I feel that this excuse is being trotted out too much. Most engineers never get to choose the programming language used for 90% of their professional projects.
And when Python is a mainstream language on top of which large, globally known websites, AI tools, core system utilities, etc are built, we should give up the purity angle and be practical.
Even the new performance push in Python land is a reflection of this. A long time ago some optimizations were refused in order to not complicate the default Python implementation.
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