well, theory is that pre compiled python code (.pyc) loads faster than uncompiled python code (.py)
so I thought, why not pre compile the pdaXrom config tools that are written in python to make them load faster?
to test this, I moved the code in the python config tools out of the main file into module files and have the main file just import those module files.
for example, for the datentime.py i moved all the code to pdaXconfig_datentime.py and rename datentime.py to datentime and stripped all the code except the __main__ section and the include to include the pdaXconfig_datentime module.
when running datentime for the first time, it compiled pdaXconfig_datentime.py into pdaXconfig_datentime.pyc
i then deleted pdaXconfg_datentime.py
now when running datentime it loads the precompiled pdaXconfig_datentime.pyc module
i also tested running the original datentime.py
unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any significant improvement in loading time, maybe there are a few milliseconds of improvements, but that isn't important to me.
running datentime or datentime.py the first time always takes a long time to load. running it (either one of them) a second time, is much faster to load. this is because it needs to load python itself on the first load, and since python had been loaded and cached already in the second run, it loads faster.
thus, the conclusion i get is that loading python is what is causing the long load time of those admin/config tools, and pre compiling the python code does not provide any significant load time gains.
if you want to test it out yourself, i have attached a package with all the python config/admin tools precompiled.