Up until a few years ago, Python tooling was a nightmare: basic tasks like installing packages or managing Python versions was a pain. The tools were brittle and did not work well together.
Then, suddenly, we saw a renaissance of new ideas in the Python ecosystem. It started with
Poetry and
pipx and continued with tooling written in Rust like
rye, which later got incorporated into
Astral.
Astral in particular contributed a very important piece to the puzzle: uv -- an extremely fast Python package and project manager that supersedes all previous attempts; For example, it is 10x-100x faster than pip.
In this episode I talk to Charlie Marsh, the Founder and CEO of Astral. We talk about Astral's mission and how Rust plays an important role in it.