Python Core Developers Q&A - Ask a Core Dev Anything!

Welcome to the first Python Core Developers Q&A! During the Q&A, several core developers will answer questions sent in by you, the broader Python community. This Q&A is part of the yearly Python Core Dev Sprint, organized virtually this year on Python Discord.

The Q&A will touch upon a lot of topics, including the balance between features and performance, the direction of asyncio, how to start contributing to CPython, memory management, and many more.

Note: Questions for this Q&A were collected from September 24 to September 30. It is no longer possible to submit questions at this point.

Participating Core Developers
• Joannah Nanjekye
• Barry Warsaw
• Pablo Galindo Salgado
• Mariatta Wijaya
• Łukasz Langa
• Senthil Kumaran
• Carol Willing
• Andrew Kuchling
• Neil Schemenauer
• Petr Viktorin
• Zach Ware
• Brett Cannon
• Eric V. Smith
• Stefan Behnel
• Ned Deily
• Lysandros Nikolaou
• Emily Morehouse
• Jason R. Coombs
• Kyle Stanley
• Terry Jan Reedy
• Guido van Rossum
• Thomas Wouters
• Yury Selivanov
• Steve Dower
• Christian Heimes
• Eric Snow
• Gregory P. Smith
• Brandt Bucher
• Mark Shannon

Links:

Questions
00:00 - Stream begins
00:25 - Introduction
01:16 - Why does Python keep investing in new grammar features and flexibility instead of focusing on performance, mobile platforms, or browsers? - Alicia
03:49 - Thoughts on something like Rust's Annual Roadmap, but for Python? - Pradyun Gedam
06:53 - What was the hardest step for you to become a core dev? - Daniel Butler
08:36 - Is it necessary to have good knowledge of C to contribute to the standard library? - Aksh
09:34 - What do you plan for the overwhelming number of new features? Like PEP 637/638/622 etc. - Anonymous
13:26 - Can we have some up-to-date list of which contributors maintain what parts? It would be useful to see which parts need maintainers and who owns what - Bernat Gabor
15:20 - What are your thoughts about async evolution? Do you think it's possible to "borrow" some idea, for example, from trio and the structured concurrency? - Vito De Tullio
16:35 - Would it be feasible to stop adding MAJOR features for a version (3.11) and diverting all efforts to performance improvements? - Anonymous
18:16 - Have you considered including a question like "What do you want changed in Python" in the PSF-JetBrains survey to help understand what community wants? - Pradyun Gedam
20:58 - What is your favorite upcoming Python feature, and why is it patma? - Lorenzo
22:57 - Are the teams that work on CPython, HPy, RPy, Cython working together? Or are they collaborating in any way? Is there common plans for the future of Python? - Anonymous
24:22 - Will a JIT compiler/other optimization be a part of official CPython some day? Is this part of the plan for Python 4.0, for example? - MrNaif
26:29 - Do you have ideas regarding type hints and type checking that haven't been published as PEPs yet? - Andrãs Delfino
28:59 - How to start contributing to Python core? - Sourabh
33:28 - How has becoming a core dev changed your life? How much time does it take up? Has it helped you personally with things like job applications? - Anonymous
39:04 - Have you thought about giving the programmer a choice to forego some dynamic flexibility for performance and use declared types, explicit casts etc? - Angelos
42:27 - When will Python get a native compiler? Creating stand-alone executables would be nice for shipping things - Torxed
47:28 - When you originally created Python, did you expect it to grow to this size? - StoopidSam
48:54 - What is the hardest, most interesting, most fun, or most boring part of Python core development? - Anonymous
51:37 - If you could change one thing in Python without having to care about anything/anybody, what would it be? - Martin Thoma
53:30 - Is there some type of metric about the usage of various parts of the standard library? What parts are more important than others? - Bernat Gabor
55:29 - Most Python updates focus on features. When can we expect huge performance improvements, especially regarding introduction of type hints? - Oti Boateng Joseph
57:51 - When is it appropriate to utilize name mangling? What should one ask themselves to determine if name mangling is a design requirement vs stylistic preference? - Anonymous
1:00:23 - Why do GUIs made with Python look so outdated? - Joel iemma
1:02:30 - Why is the language so flexible but still slow? - Benzaldhehide
1:03:59 - What development in Python are you excited about and why? - Martin Thoma
1:05:35 - Conclusion

[johnoakey]

Has anybody ever suggested an ".iscurrency" - an integer or a float with 0 to 2 decimal places? It would be a lot more useful to most users than a pattern matching primitive already available a number of ways.

[YlmazDALKIRANscallion]

29:00 I'm not gay but Tal is so cute. lol

[RakaZet]

Hi, can you update the discord invitation link? I think the current link has expired. Maybe try making the invitation permanent. Thanks!