Reinventing Python tooling with Rust (Changelog Interviews #660)

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Charlie Marsh built Ruff (an extremely fast Python linter written in Rust) and uv (an extremely fast Python package manager written in Rust) because he believes great tools can have an outsized impact. He believes it so much, in fact, that he started an entire company that builds next-gen Python tooling.

On this episode, Charlie joins us to tell us all about it: why Python, why Rust, how they make everything so fast, how they’re starting to make money, what other products he’s dreaming up, and more.

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Sponsors:

• Depot – 10x faster builds? Yes please. Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.

Featuring:

• Charlie Marsh – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Astral
• uv on 2025 SO survey
• ov
• Ruff
• pyx
• Changelog News Classifieds

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

บท

1. Welcome to The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Depot (00:01:09)

https://depot.dev

3. Start the show! (00:03:21)

4. Intro to uv (00:04:04)

5. Inspired by Cargo (00:06:22)

6. Past tech for the future (00:08:47)

7. Full circle pollination (00:12:58)

8. Why fix Python packaging (00:16:27)

9. First steps (00:21:36)

10. No pitch deck required (00:27:20)

11. Clauding away (00:29:02)

12. The right way to install (00:31:33)

13. uv init / add (00:32:43)

14. The global cache (00:35:09)

15. Rust project structure (00:37:43)

16. Python or Rust? (00:39:14)

17. Rust ownership deep-dive (00:42:04)

18. 3 ownership rules (00:46:37)

19. Impossible vulns (00:47:48)

20. The source of speed (00:49:26)

21. First product! pyx (00:55:16)

22. A future public registry? (00:58:20)

23. What it means to be GPU-aware (01:01:46)

24. Other product ideas (01:08:39)

25. A new Python runtime?! (01:12:46)

26. Why a new runtime? (01:20:21)

27. Astral's brand (01:29:05)

28. Can't outsource voice (01:39:03)

29. Wrapping up (01:41:03)

30. Closing thoughts (01:41:44)

https://forms.gle/yCJirHRCWkdbG5qK6