Jacob Kaplan-Moss kicked off this fascinating conversation about [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) on Mastodon recently. It's worth reading the whole thing, which includes input from a whole range of influential Python community members …
Whether to use a non-Python language where appropriate
Whether to use rust over C, which is already heavily used and fundamental in the ecosystem (I think we can put cython and Fortran to the side)
I think these questions are mostly independent.
If the chief criterion is accessibility to the Python user base, issue 2 isn’t a problem IMO. One could argue, as does @[email protected] in this thread, that in fact rust provides benefits along these lines that C doesn’t. Rust being influenced by Python adds weight to that. Either way though, people like and want to program in rust and have provided marked success so far in the Python ecosystem (as eraclito cites). It’s still a new-ish language, but if the core issue is C v Rust, it’s probably best to address it on those terms.
I think for python tooling the choice is Python Vs Rust. C isn’t in the mix either.
people like and want to program in rust
I think there’s a survivor bias going on here. Those that have tried rust and stuck with it, they also like it. Far more people in the python community haven’t tried it, or have and not stuck with it. I like and want to program Haskell. I’m not going to write python tools in it because the community won’t appreciate it.
Tools should be maintained by those that use them. Python doesn’t want to rely on the portion of the venn diagram that are rust and python users because that pool of people is much smaller.
I think for python tooling the choice is Python Vs Rust. C isn’t in the mix either.
That seems fair. Though I recall Mumba making headway (at least in the anaconda / conda space) and it is a C++ project. AFAIU, their underlying internals have now been folded into conda, which would mean a fairly popular, and arguably successful portion of the tooling ecosystem (I tended to reach for conda and recommend the same to many) is reliant on a C++ foundation.
On the whole, I imagine this is a good thing as the biggest issue Conda had was performance when trying to resolve packaging environments and versions.
So, including C++ as part of C (which is probably fair for the purposes of this discussion), I don’t think C is out of the mix either. Should there ever be a push to fold something into core python, using C would probably come back into the picture too.
I think there’s a survivor bias going on here.
Your survivorship bias point on rust makes a lot of sense … there’s certainly some push back against its evangelists and that’s fair (as someone who’s learnt the language a bit). Though I think it’s fair to point out the success stories are “survivorship” stories worth noting.
But it seems we probably come back to whether fundamental tooling should be done in python or a more performant stack. And I think we just disagree here. I want the tooling to “just work” and work well and personally don’t hold nearly as much interest in being able to contribute to it as I do any other python project. If that can be done in python, all the better, but I’m personally not convinced (my experience with conda, while it was a pure python project, is informative for me here)
Personally I think python should have paid more attention to both built-in tooling (again, I think it’s important to point out how much of this is simply Guido’s “I don’t want to do that” that probably wouldn’t be tolerated these days) and built-in options for more performance (by maybe taking pypy and JIT-ing more seriously).
Maybe the GIL-less work and more performant python tricks coming down the line will make your argument more compelling to people like me.
(Thanks very much for the chat BTW, I personally appreciate your perspective as much as I’m arguing with you)
Part of it might be that I’m often having similar arguments with the team I run about introducing dependencies.
Engineers have a tendency to want to use the perfect tool for a job at the expense of other concerns. It could be ease of maintenance, availability of the skill-set, user experience, or whatever. If there’s pushback it’s normally that they are putting their own priorities above other people’s equally valid concerns.
Often I’m telling people to step-back. Stop pushing, listen to the resistance and learn from it. Maybe I’m on a bit of a crusade when I see similar situations in open-source.
I feel like this is conflating two questions now.
I think these questions are mostly independent.
If the chief criterion is accessibility to the Python user base, issue 2 isn’t a problem IMO. One could argue, as does @[email protected] in this thread, that in fact rust provides benefits along these lines that C doesn’t. Rust being influenced by Python adds weight to that. Either way though, people like and want to program in rust and have provided marked success so far in the Python ecosystem (as eraclito cites). It’s still a new-ish language, but if the core issue is C v Rust, it’s probably best to address it on those terms.
I think for python tooling the choice is Python Vs Rust. C isn’t in the mix either.
I think there’s a survivor bias going on here. Those that have tried rust and stuck with it, they also like it. Far more people in the python community haven’t tried it, or have and not stuck with it. I like and want to program Haskell. I’m not going to write python tools in it because the community won’t appreciate it.
Tools should be maintained by those that use them. Python doesn’t want to rely on the portion of the venn diagram that are rust and python users because that pool of people is much smaller.
That seems fair. Though I recall Mumba making headway (at least in the anaconda / conda space) and it is a C++ project. AFAIU, their underlying internals have now been folded into conda, which would mean a fairly popular, and arguably successful portion of the tooling ecosystem (I tended to reach for conda and recommend the same to many) is reliant on a C++ foundation.
On the whole, I imagine this is a good thing as the biggest issue Conda had was performance when trying to resolve packaging environments and versions.
So, including C++ as part of C (which is probably fair for the purposes of this discussion), I don’t think C is out of the mix either. Should there ever be a push to fold something into core python, using C would probably come back into the picture too.
Your survivorship bias point on rust makes a lot of sense … there’s certainly some push back against its evangelists and that’s fair (as someone who’s learnt the language a bit). Though I think it’s fair to point out the success stories are “survivorship” stories worth noting.
But it seems we probably come back to whether fundamental tooling should be done in python or a more performant stack. And I think we just disagree here. I want the tooling to “just work” and work well and personally don’t hold nearly as much interest in being able to contribute to it as I do any other python project. If that can be done in python, all the better, but I’m personally not convinced (my experience with conda, while it was a pure python project, is informative for me here)
Personally I think python should have paid more attention to both built-in tooling (again, I think it’s important to point out how much of this is simply Guido’s “I don’t want to do that” that probably wouldn’t be tolerated these days) and built-in options for more performance (by maybe taking pypy and JIT-ing more seriously).
Maybe the GIL-less work and more performant python tricks coming down the line will make your argument more compelling to people like me.
(Thanks very much for the chat BTW, I personally appreciate your perspective as much as I’m arguing with you)
Part of it might be that I’m often having similar arguments with the team I run about introducing dependencies.
Engineers have a tendency to want to use the perfect tool for a job at the expense of other concerns. It could be ease of maintenance, availability of the skill-set, user experience, or whatever. If there’s pushback it’s normally that they are putting their own priorities above other people’s equally valid concerns.
Often I’m telling people to step-back. Stop pushing, listen to the resistance and learn from it. Maybe I’m on a bit of a crusade when I see similar situations in open-source.
Oh I’m with you there! And otherwise totally understandable.