The SortedContainers Package for Python

See this: SortedContainers — sortedcontainers 0.6.0 documentation

Here's some text from the invitation.

You may find the the performance comparison and implementation details interesting because it doesn't use any sophisticated tree data structure or balancing algorithms. It's a great example of taking advantage of what processors are good at rather than what theory says should be fast.

The documentation is extensive. The implementation details are interesting. The claim of faster is supported nicely. I have two quibbles.

1. It actually does use a sophisticated tree data structure. A list of lists really is a kind of tree.
2. "rather than what theory says should be fast" doesn't make any sense to me at all. 

A claim that Computer Science theory isn't right bothers me. If theory says some algorithm is fast, there are only two possibilities: (1) theory is actually right and it really is fast and the demonstration was incomplete or (2) the theory is incomplete, and the implementation extends (or replaces) the old theory; the implementation is new theory.

It's never the case that theory is "wrong." That fails to understand the role of theory.

It's always the case that an implementation either confirms theory or extends theory with new results.

To me, this package demonstrates one of two things.

1. The theory was incomplete and this package is a new theory that replaces the old, wrong theory.
2. The theory was right and this package demonstrates that the theory was right by being a good, solid, usable implementation. 

I would suggest the second option here: this package shows the value of Python's list-of-lists as a high-performance technique for implementing sorted structures. It's not an example of "taking advantage of what processors are good at." This is an example of using Python properly to squeeze excellent performance out of the available structures.

The really important insight is this "The sorted container types are implemented based on a single observation: bisect.insort is fast, really fast."

This is a profound observation.  Read more here: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/implementation.html