Store actual ints, not pointers to them in the interpreter state. by markshannon · Pull Request #29274 · python/cpython

Make the array of small ints just that. An array of ints, not an array of pointers.
In theory should be a tiny bit faster, and removes a possible failure mode when creating the interpreter state.

Performance is about the same seemingly slowing down floats a bit, possibly because the float free list is now further from the start of the interpreter state.