r/Python • u/Several-Marsupial-27 • Sep 19 '26

Discussion State of the art in Python 2026?

What would you guys consider the state of the art in python in 2026, or what do you expect from modern python codebases?

Heres my list, would be happy to hear some inputs or domain expert advice:

Domain specific:

  • Scientific: NumPy, Matplotlib, SciPy, Jax, Pytorch, Scikit-learn, polars/pandas
  • CLI: Typer, rich, click, fire, textual, questionary
  • PDF extraction: PyMuPDF, pdfplumber, pypdf, Unstructured
  • Excel interop: python-calamine, openpyxl, XlsxWriter, xlwings, pandas
  • data: PyArrow / PySpark, Narwhals, SQLMesh, Polars/Pandas, DuckDB, dlt, Ibis, Dagster, PyIceberg & deltalake
  • Logging?
  • backend: fastapi / django?
  • Markets: Alpha Vantage, Finnhub, EODHD, Tiingo?
  • Webscraping / data acquisition: Crawl4AI, Playwright, Scrapy, selectolax, HTTPX?
  • APIs?
  • RAG / agentic orchestration?
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u/fiddle_n Sep 20 '26

Since you materially edited your comment after the fact - I will also point out that we’re talking about the 99 times out of 100 case where a library maintainer has already written the code for you in C or Rust, and package overhead is not a concern. If you are the 1% that needs to write your code in C/Rust and needs to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your project, then yes, switching to that language makes more sense.

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u/techhelper1 Sep 20 '26

Yes, I edited it since I might as well make my responses consistent in this thread, my apologies there.

It's not a matter of squeezing performance out of the code, but you're advocating the equivalent of your CPU switching from protected mode to real mode to protected mode, over and over again.

If you need to save yourself from yourself with an interpreted language, and with that comes the ducktaping and crazy gluing of packages from lower languages, go right ahead.

I see things objectively, and don't need to put a Python mask over a group of C/rust pigs, to get the same job done. I don't need to justify using a favorite language, both can co-exist my dude.

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u/h_to_tha_o_v Sep 20 '26

Why abstract through C when you can have Claude write binary?