Debug slow import

[cliffckerr]

On chinchilla, huge difference

import time; a = time.time(); import sciris; b = time.time() - a; print(b)
1.9605119228363037
import time; a = time.time(); import pandas; import pylab; b = time.time() - a; print(b)
0.5196902751922607

Locally, very little difference

import time; a = time.time(); import sciris; b = time.time() - a; print(b)
0.3653862476348877
import time; a = time.time(); import pandas; import pylab; b = time.time() - a; print(b)
0.30755186080932617

[cliffckerr]

Difference is settings.

Locally:

preliminaries: 2.4080276489257812e-05
sc_version: 0.000415802001953125
sc_utils: 0.1680305004119873
sc_printing: 0.16973400115966797
sc_nested: 0.16983556747436523
sc_odict: 0.1701200008392334
sc_settings: 0.34852123260498047
sc_datetime: 0.3488953113555908
sc_math: 0.3489072322845459
sc_dataframe: 0.34915900230407715
sc_fileio: 0.3539769649505615
sc_versioning: 0.35413599014282227
sc_profiling: 0.35815906524658203
sc_parallel: 0.3593869209289551
sc_asd: 0.3594839572906494
sc_plotting: 0.35982418060302734
sc_colors: 0.36571717262268066

VM:

preliminaries: 8.58306884765625e-06
sc_version: 0.005199432373046875
sc_utils: 0.2072312831878662
sc_printing: 0.21686410903930664
sc_nested: 0.2189188003540039
sc_odict: 0.2300734519958496
sc_settings: 1.8661830425262451
sc_datetime: 1.8760707378387451
sc_math: 1.876101016998291
sc_dataframe: 1.883629322052002
sc_fileio: 1.8940608501434326
sc_versioning: 1.8977737426757812
sc_profiling: 1.9086053371429443
sc_parallel: 1.9134533405303955
sc_asd: 1.9161326885223389
sc_plotting: 1.9199676513671875
sc_colors: 1.9383621215820312

[cliffckerr]

Cause: pl.get_backend() is actually creating the backend. Old solution here:
matplotlib/matplotlib#13096 (comment)

New solution seems to be rcParams._get_backend_or_none().

[cliffckerr]

Done