Building Interoperable Tools for a Modern Data Science IDE

In part two of our conversation with Wes McKinney, we dig into the challenges and realities of sustaining open source development. Wes shares how funding actually works (or doesn’t), why corporate buy-in is essential, and what it’s like building tools across languages, communities, and IDEs. We also talk about the Apache Software Foundation’s role in open governance and the origin of the Positron IDE.

What’s Inside:

• Why passion isn’t enough for open source to scale
• Apache Arrow’s origin story and how it was pitched
• How open governance enables trust between competitors
• The thinking behind Positron, Posit’s next-gen IDE
• Polyglot programming – Designing tools that bridge the R/Python divide
• LLMs and data UX: Why modern IDEs need to serve both humans and models
• Day-to-day coding, advising, investing, and context-switching
• Metalheads unite