#566: State of the art in Python 2026

Which of your Python tools would you still pick if you started fresh today? For a long time, the answer was easy. The stack felt settled. AI has reopened almost every one of those choices. Some tools got faster. Others got replaced outright. On this episode, a panel takes stock of the state of the art in Python for 2026. Calvin Hendryx-Parker is CTO and co-founder of Six Feet Up. Pat Decker works in DevOps at Hibu. Reuven Lerner has trained Python developers for 15 years. Sydney Runkle does product management for open source at LangChain. One of them barely opens an editor anymore. Listen in to hear the surprising replacement.

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Links from the show

Guests
Pat Decker
Reuven Lerner: github.com
Calvin Hendryx-Parker: linkedin.com
Sydney Runkle: github.com

Talk Python Membership: talkpython.fm/community

This Reddit post: www.reddit.com
PSF+Jetbrains survey: blog.jetbrains.com
vscode: code.visualstudio.com
pycharm: www.jetbrains.com
cmux: cmux.com
warp.dev: www.warp.dev
herdr: herdr.dev
Royal TS: apps.microsoft.com
Tailscale: tailscale.com
uv: docs.astral.sh
FastAPI: fastapi.tiangolo.com
Litestar: litestar.dev
Django: www.djangoproject.com
httpx2: github.com
ty: github.com
pyrefly: pyrefly.org
postgres: www.postgresql.org
sqlite: www.sqlite.org
duckdb: duckdb.org
Hetzner: www.hetzner.com
DigitalOcean: www.digitalocean.com
AWS: aws.amazon.com
Great Docs: posit-dev.github.io
Zensical: zensical.org
Vue.js: Vue.js
AgentsView: www.agentsview.io
LangChain Blog: www.langchain.com
Umami Example of Great Docs: mkennedy.codes
Mintlify: www.mintlify.com
DuckLake: ducklake.select
Robyn Web Framework: robyn.tech
Django Ninja: django-ninja.dev
Talk Python CLI: talkpython.fm
KEdit: www.kedit.com
Kitty: sw.kovidgoyal.net

Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com
Episode #566 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/566
Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm

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