I think a more pedantic way to describe what I mean is: "What if we could compile Python into raw native code *without having a Python interpreter*?" The key

I think a more pedantic way to describe what I mean is: "What if we could compile Python into raw native code *without having a Python interpreter*?" The key distinguishing feature of this compiler is being able to make standalone, cross-platform native binaries from Python code. Numba will fallback to using the Python interpreter for code that it can't jit.