Slightly off-topic, but in case you haven't checked out Cython (www.cython.org) before, please do! It allows you to write Python code which is _translated_ into C code that uses the CPython API. This includes classes, list comprehensions, generator expressions... practically all Python code is valid Cython code.
I'm honestly never going back to writing C again. Cython gives me all the expressiveness of Python combined with all the performance and close-to-the-metal-godlike-powers of C. I've been using it to implement high-performance graph traversal and routing algorithms and to interface with C/C++ libraries, and it's been an absolute amazing productivity boost.
However, all of this comes with one caveat: you really need to have a good knowledge of C to understand Cython and what it's doing. It merely saves you from the tedium of hand-coding against the CPython API and all of the boilerplate code that's needed to get much of anything done in C.
I'm honestly never going back to writing C again. Cython gives me all the expressiveness of Python combined with all the performance and close-to-the-metal-godlike-powers of C. I've been using it to implement high-performance graph traversal and routing algorithms and to interface with C/C++ libraries, and it's been an absolute amazing productivity boost.
However, all of this comes with one caveat: you really need to have a good knowledge of C to understand Cython and what it's doing. It merely saves you from the tedium of hand-coding against the CPython API and all of the boilerplate code that's needed to get much of anything done in C.