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.

About Astral

Astral is a company that builds tools for Python developers. What sounds simple is actually a very complex problem: Python's ecosystem is huge, but fragmented and often incompatible. Astral’s mission is to make the Python ecosystem more productive by building high-performance developer tools, starting with Ruff. In their words: "Fast, unified, futuristic."

About Charlie Marsh

Charlie is a long-time open source developer and entrepreneur. He has an impressive CV, graduating with highest honors from Princeton University. After that, he worked at Khan Academy and others before eventually founding Astral in '22. Charlie is an engaging speaker and a great communicator.

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Links From The Episode

ruff - Python static linter and formatter written in Rust
uv - Python package and project manager written in Rust
rustfmt - Rust code formatter
clippy - Linter for Rust code
The Rust Programming Language: Cargo Workspaces - The Rust Book's chapter on workspaces
pip - Package Installer for Python
pip documentation: Requirements File Format - A description of the format of requirements.txt, including a list of embedded CLI options
uv's CI - Build scripts for many different platforms
jemalloc - Alternative memory allocator
zlib-ng - Next Generation zlib implementation in C
reqwest - An easy and powerful Rust HTTP Client
zlib-rs - Pure Rust implementation of zlib
XCode Instruments - Native macOS performance profiler
CodSpeed - Continuous benchmarking in CI
hyperfine - "macro benchmarking" tool, coincidentally written in Rust
samply - Sampling based profiler written in Rust
cargo flamegraph - Cargo profiling plugin
tokio - Asynchronous runtime for Rust
curl-rust - Network API used in cargo
tar-rs - Sync tar crate
async-tar - Async tar crate based on the async_std runtime
tokio-tar - Async tar crate based on tokio
astral-tokio-tar - Async tar crate based on tokio, maintained by Astral
RustPython - Python interpreter written in Rust
lalrpop - The parser generator used by RustPython
Charlie's EuroRust 2024 Talk - Mentions the version number parser at 18:45
ripgrep - Andrew Gallant's idiomatic Rust project, which also happens to be a very fast CLI file search tool

Official Links

Christopher Bailey

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