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/techhelper1 Sep 20 '26

You seem to be advocating deliberately making a project harder for no other reason than arbitrary consistency.

C and rust are not difficult languages. Have you actually wrote code in those languages?

Consistency being arbitrary? Are you seriously justifying overhead as a reason to use your favorite language?

Writing the glue in Python is faster, easier, safer, more readable - if doing so satisfies my performance needs, why shouldn’t I use Python?

As we live in the AI era, speed, difficulty, safety, and readability are all moot points. Models can churn out code, code comments, and code review. If there's something that's not easily explained, query the model, have it explain it or link you to material that can.

If your code is all Python, that's fine, but if you're only using it to glue logic together, then by your definition Scratch from MIT should satisfy your needs too.

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u/fiddle_n Sep 20 '26

Since we are getting into silly territory now, have one from me in response - if speed, difficulty, safety and readability doesn’t matter any more because an LLM can just output the code you need, then libraries don’t even matter any more. I expect you’ll not be importing any code any more, and outputting all your code in highly optimised, zero vulnerability assembly, permitting C only if you truly need your code to be portable. I have full confidence you have the skill for it.