Python Continues to Improve Tooling: Pandas 3.0 Will Have `pandas.col` Syntax!
Hello Slam Dunk Software readers!
It has been a while. I'm sorry.
While I believe I'm destined to write rust, go, and other based technologies, I'm currently forced to put up with Python. But despite this thorn in my side, it has been nice to see the Python ecosystem improve over the last ~2 years!
Good Python News
There has been some good Python news recently.
As of very, very recently (like, 2 hours ago), a PR was merged into pandas, to be included in Pandas 3.0. It's a small ergonomic change, but that's really a lot of people's complaint when it comes to the library.
pandas-dev
This is downstream of some pandas-adjacent tools, like Narwhals, Polars, PySpark, etc., etc. Which is really cool to see that impact the giant that is pandas.
This is really good!
Other Python Stuff
Of course, the other big change to the Python ecosystem over the last few years has been mostly at the hands of one company—the company that we all wonder how they will ever make money—https://astral.sh/.
Of course, there are constant improvements coming out as PEPs, but the most impactful updates to Python ecosystem and tooling (at least in my life) have been from uv, ruff, and maybe soon ty (astral.sh's type checker) and pyx (a package registry from astral.sh!).
uv also just sort-of-silently launched a new version which includes a format command. Read more about that here.
uv getting a format command is very much in-line with the company's founder's original vision for the tool, which was very much inspired by cargo in rust.
If you're at all interested in both Python AND Rust, I highly, highly, suggest this episode of Rust in Production with Charlie Marsh, He talks about bringing the ergonomics of cargo in the rust world into the Python world.
Ok, that's it for now. Till next time!
