untrackable objects are not tracked by the garbage collector. This can
reduce the size of collections and therefore the garbage collection overhead
on long-running programs, depending on their particular use of datatypes.

(trivia: this makes the "binary_trees" benchmark from the Computer Language
Shootout 40% faster)

backwards compatibility. Add Py_Refcnt, Py_Type, Py_Size, and
PyVarObject_HEAD_INIT.

of some of the common builtin types.

Use a bit in tp_flags for each common builtin type.  Check the bit
to determine if any instance is a subclass of these common types.
The check avoids a function call and O(n) search of the base classes.
The check is done in the various Py*_Check macros rather than calling
PyType_IsSubtype().

All the bits are set in tp_flags when the type is declared
in the Objects/*object.c files because PyType_Ready() is not called
for all the types.  Should PyType_Ready() be called for all types?
If so and the change is made, the changes to the Objects/*object.c files
can be reverted (remove setting the tp_flags).  Objects/typeobject.c
would also have to be modified to add conditions
for Py*_CheckExact() in addition to each the PyType_IsSubtype check.

exposed in header files.  Fixed a few comments in these headers.

As we might have expected, writing down invariants systematically exposed a
(minor) bug.  In this case, function objects have a writeable func_code
attribute, which could be set to code objects with the wrong number of
free variables.  Calling the resulting function segfaulted the interpreter.
Added a corresponding test.

useful for rapidly building argument tuples without having to invoke the
more sophisticated machinery of Py_BuildValue().

Thanks to Skip Montanaro and Kalle Svensson for the patches.

tuple(i) repaired to return a true tuple when i is an instance of a
tuple subclass.
Added PyTuple_CheckExact macro.
PySequence_Tuple():  if a tuple-like object isn't exactly a tuple, it's
not safe to return the object as-is -- make a new tuple of it instead.