The first in a sequence of PRs focusing on improving performance in
core. We're starting with reducing import times for common structures,
hence the benchmarks here.
The benchmark looks a little bit complicated - we have to use a process
so that we don't suffer from Python's import caching system. I tried
doing manual modification of `sys.modules` between runs, but that's
pretty tricky / hacky to get right, hence the subprocess approach.
Motivated by extremely slow baseline for common imports (we're talking
2-5 seconds):
<img width="633" alt="Screenshot 2025-04-09 at 12 48 12 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/994616fe-1798-404d-bcbe-48ad0eb8a9a0"
/>
Also added a `make benchmark` command to make local runs easy :).
Currently using walltimes so that we can track total time despite using
a manual proces.
