#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. Episode sponsors Talk Python Courses Python in Production 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 Theme Song: Developer Rap 🥁 Served in a Flask 🎸: talkpython.fm/flasksong ---== Don't be a stranger ==--- YouTube: youtube.com/@talkpython Bluesky: @talkpython.fm Mastodon: @talkpython@fosstodon.org X.com: @talkpython Michael on Bluesky: @mkennedy.codes Michael on Mastodon: @mkennedy@fosstodon.org Michael on X.com: @mkennedy