I think somewhat related is the RPythonic project (https://code.google.com/p/rpythonic/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5927769). It uses RPython to be able to statically compile Python code to C and that way creates CPython extension modules - so you end up with something similar to Numba.

I'm not sure which approach is better.

Some core PyPy people suggest against using RPython for anything else than what they intended it to use (like writing an interpreter). See:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pypy-dev/2013-June/011498.h...

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pypy-dev/2013-June/011503.h...