This is how the chapter is organized

We will start with first part of the performance improvements for the Gold Hunt scenario. The aim is to provide you with a practical example of how to approach the problem and gradually cut down the runtime. The following chart shows a preview of what will be accomplished by the end of this chapter—this is the same chart shown in the previous chapter. The application runtime is about to be cut down by more than 50%!

The second half of this book will show you many ways to improve the application speed. For this discussion, we will use generic examples, as not all techniques can be applied directly to the Gold Hunt scenario. The second half will serve as a handy reference for performance improvements.

Tip

The Python wiki has documented several performance improvement tips. Some of these will be covered here. Refer to https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSpeed/PerformanceTips for further details.