Given an indexable data structure such as a list l, how can we get the fastest function that is equivalent to lambda i: l[i]? The problem of the lambda function is that it is Python and slows things down. There are some built-in operators in the operator module, but it appears that none of them can be used in this situation.
l.__getitem__ is more than twice as fast, and since that's the object's own method, I doubt you can beat it.
>>> timeit('f(i)', 'l=[1,2,3]; i=1; f=lambda i:l[i]', number=10**8)
17.013631199999963
>>> timeit('f(i)', 'l=[1,2,3]; i=1; f=l.__getitem__', number=10**8)
7.722098399999936