This might be a silly question, but how would I use Abe functions in my own Python programs.  The web interface is nice and all, but it is slow.  And the command line --query statements aren't exactly fast either.  I'm thinking if I could call a function directly from within my own Python code, instead of parsing web API output, what I'm writing could be so much more efficient and speedy.

For example, if I wanted to get the balance of an address, it would be nice to be able to directly call the function in Abe that calculates the balance.

Does that make sense?