[ragnese]

> Are there any good resources on optimizing python performance while keeping idiomatic?

At the risk of sounding snarky and/or unhelpful, in my experience, the answer is that you don't try to optimize Python code beyond fixing your algorithm to have better big-O properties, followed by calling out to external code that isn't written in Python (e.g., NumPy, etc).

But, I'm a hater. I spent several years working with Python and hated almost every minute of it for various reasons. Very few languages repulse me the way Python does: I hate the syntax, the semantics, the difficulty of distribution, and the performance (memory and CPU, and is GIL disabled by default yet?!)...