Talk Python To Me

#550: AI Contributions and Maintainer Load in Open Source

You wake up, brew the coffee, open GitHub, and there it is. Another pull request on your open source project. Thirteen thousand lines added. No issue filed first. No discussion. Just "here, please review this for me." Over the past year, GitHub activity has spiked roughly twelve times in a few short months, and a huge chunk of that signal is landing on the same small group of maintainers who were already stretched thin. The curl bug bounty got buried under AI-generated noise. Jazzband, the home of Django classics like pip-tools and the Django debug toolbar, hit what its maintainer called an "apocalypse" and started sunsetting. Even CPython just shipped fresh guidelines on AI-assisted contributions this week. So what does all of this actually look like from the receiving end of the pull request? On this episode, Paolo Melchiorre joins us to tell that story from inside the maintainer's chair. Paolo is a director of the Django Software Foundation, an organizer of PyCon Italy, a Django Girls coach, and he has spent the past year carefully collecting examples of how AI is reshaping open source contributions. The good, the bad, and the extra fingers. We dig into his PyCon US talk on AI-assisted contributions and maintainer load, why AI is best understood as an amplifier rather than a new kind of contributor, the wildly different policies across 86 open source foundations, whether projects banning AI today are reacting to last year's models. Episode sponsors AgentField AI Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guest Paolo Melchiorre: github.com DSF: www.djangoproject.com djangonaut-space: djangonaut.space PyCon Italia: 2026.pycon.it uDjango: github.com My PyCon US 2026 post: www.paulox.net AI-Assisted Contributions and Maintainer Load: www.paulox.net Senior Engineer Tries Vibe Coding: www.youtube.com Code Rabbit AI PR Reviews: www.coderabbit.ai GitHub Usage Graphs: github.blog Update on CPython's AI Policies: fosstodon.org High-Quality Chaos from Curl: daniel.haxx.se The Generative AI Policy Landscape in Open Source: redmonk.com Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #550 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/550 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

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#549: Great Docs

1w ago01:07:00Tap to summarize

Your documentation has two audiences now - humans reading the rendered HTML, and AI agents trying to make sense of your library. Rich Iannone and Michael Chow from Posit are back on Talk Python with a brand new Python documentation tool called Great Docs that takes both seriously. Rich is the creator of Great Tables, and before that the R package GT, the man has a serious eye for design, and he's pointed that energy at the Python docs ecosystem. We'll talk about how Great Docs spins up a polished site in three commands, why every page ships as Markdown for your favorite LLM, how it leans on Quarto for executable code blocks and tabbed install sections, and where it lands against Sphinx, MkDocs, and Zensical. Plus, you'll meet Tablin. Here we go. Episode sponsors Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26 Temporal Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guests Michael Chow: github.com Rich lannone: github.com Python Web Security with OWASP Top 10 and Agentic AI Course: talkpython.fm Great Docs: posit-dev.github.io/great-docs Great Tables: posit-dev.github.io GT Episode: talkpython.fm Sphinx: www.sphinx-doc.org mkdocs: www.mkdocs.org Zensical: zensical.org Hugo: gohugo.io Ghost: ghost.org Rs pkgdown: pkgdown.r-lib.org Quarto: quarto.org quickstart: posit-dev.github.io llms.txt file: llmstxt.org llms.txt: talkpython.fm mcp: talkpython.fm cli: talkpython.fm Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #549 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/549 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

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#548: Event Sourcing Design Pattern

4w ago01:08:49Tap to summarize

What if your database worked more like Git? Every change captured as an immutable event you can replay, instead of a single mutating row that quietly forgets its own history. That's event sourcing, and Chris May is back on Talk Python, fresh off our Datastar panel, to walk us through what it actually looks like in Python. We'll cover the core patterns, the libraries to reach for, when not to use it, and why event sourcing turns out to be a surprisingly good fit for AI-assisted coding. Episode sponsors Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26 Temporal Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guest Chris May: everydaysuperpowers.dev Intro to event sourcing e-book: everydaysuperpowers.gumroad.com Domain-Driven Design: The Power of CQRS and Event Sourcing: How CQRS/ES Redefine Building Scalable System: ricofritzsche.me DDD: www.amazon.com Understanding Eventsourcing (Martin Dilger): www.amazon.com Event Sourcing Explained using Football Video: www.youtube.com Why I finally embraced event sourcing and why you should too article: everydaysuperpowers.dev valkey: valkey.io diskcache: talkpython.fm eventsourcing package: github.com eventsourcing docs: eventsourcing.readthedocs.io John Bywater: github.com Datastar: data-star.dev Microconf: microconf.com Event Modeling & Event Sourcing Podcast: podcast.eventmodeling.org Python Package Guides for AI Agents: github.com Iodine tablets AI joke: x.com KurrentDb: www.kurrent.io Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #548 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/548 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

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#547: Parallel Python at Anyscale with Ray

4w ago00:59:16Tap to summarize

When OpenAI trained GPT-3, they didn't roll their own orchestration layer. They used Ray, an open source Python framework born out of the same Berkeley research lab lineage that gave us Apache Spark. And here's the twist: Ray was originally built for reinforcement learning research, then quietly faded as RL hit a wall. Until ChatGPT showed up. Suddenly reinforcement learning was back, as the post-training step that turns a raw language model into something genuinely useful. Edward Oakes and Richard Liaw, two founding engineers behind Ray and Anyscale, join me on Talk Python to tell that story. We'll trace Ray from its RISE Lab origins at UC Berkeley to powering some of the largest training runs in the world. We'll talk about what Ray actually is, a distributed execution engine for AI workloads, and how a few lines of Python become work running across hundreds of GPUs. We'll cover Ray Data for multimodal pipelines, the dashboard, the VS Code remote debugger, KubRay for Kubernetes, and where Ray fits alongside Dask, multiprocessing, and asyncio. If you've ever stared at a single-machine Python script and thought, "there has to be a better way to scale this", this one's for you Episode sponsors Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26 AgentField AI Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guests Richard Liaw: github.com Edward Oakes: github.com Ray: www.ray.io Example code (we used for walk-through): docs.ray.io Getting Started with Ray: docs.ray.io Ray Libraries: docs.ray.io kuberay: github.com Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #547 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/547 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

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#546: Self hosting apps for Python people

Apr 2701:03:12Tap to summarize

The cloud is convenient until it isn't. You upload your photos, sync your contacts, click through the cookie banners. Then prices go up again or you read about a family that lost their entire Google account over a medical photo sent to a doctor. At some point, the question shifts from "why would I run this myself?" to "why aren't I?" My guest this week is Alex Kretzschmar, head of DevRel at Tailscale, longtime host of the Self-Hosted podcast, and co-founder of Linuxserver.io. We cover what self-hosting really means in 2026, the apps worth running yourself like Immich and Home Assistant, why Docker Compose ties it all together, and how Tailscale lets you reach any of it from anywhere, without opening a single port. If you've been thinking about pulling your digital life back behind your own walls, this is your roadmap. Episode sponsors Temporal Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guest Alex Kretzschmar: alex.ktz.me Bitflip podcast: bitflip.show Self-Hosted podcast (Alex's previous show): selfhosted.show Perfect Media Server: perfectmediaserver.com KTZ Systems on YouTube: youtube.com/@ktzsystems Linuxserver.io (co-founded by Alex): linuxserver.io "How Tailscale Works" blog post: tailscale.com/blog/how-tailscale-works https://tailscale.com/: tailscale.com Self-hosted apps discussed Awesome Self-Hosted (GitHub list): github.com Immich (Google Photos alternative): immich.app Home Assistant: home-assistant.io Open Home Foundation: openhomefoundation.org Plausible Analytics: plausible.io Umami Analytics: umami.is Python integration for umami: pypi.org Pi-hole: pi-hole.net AdGuard Home: adguard.com NextDNS: nextdns.io Coolify: coolify.io Docker + ufw: docs.docker.com Storage, backup & filesystem OpenZFS: openzfs.org ZFS.rent (offsite ZFS replication): zfs.rent Backblaze: backblaze.com Hetzner Storage Box: hetzner.com DigitalOcean: digitalocean.com Secrets management mentioned OpenBao (open-source Vault fork): openbao.org HashiCorp Vault: hashicorp.com Bitwarden: bitwarden.com 1Password: 1password.com Hardware mentioned Proxmox VE: proxmox.com Minisforum MS01: minisforum.com Zima Board / Zima OS: zimaspace.com Other references Cory Doctorow on "enshittification" (Cory's blog where he coined the term): pluralistic.net Linus Tech Tips' WAN Show (Linus mentioned NAS-building going mainstream): linustechtips.com Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #546 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/546 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

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#545: OWASP Top 10 (2025 List) for Python Devs

Apr 1601:06:03Tap to summarize

The OWASP Top 10 just got a fresh update, and there are some big changes: supply chain attacks, exceptional condition handling, and more. Tanya Janca is back on Talk Python to walk us through every single one of them. And we're not just talking theory, we're going to turn Claude Code loose on a real open source project and see what it finds. Let's do it. Episode sponsors Temporal Talk Python Courses Links from the show DevSec Station Podcast: www.devsecstation.com SheHacksPurple Newsletter: newsletter.shehackspurple.ca owasp.org: owasp.org owasp.org/Top10/2025: owasp.org from here: github.com Kinto: github.com A01:2025 - Broken Access Control: owasp.org A02:2025 - SecuA02 Security Misconfiguration: owasp.org ASP.NET: ASP.NET A03:2025 - Software Supply Chain Failures: owasp.org A04:2025 - Cryptographic Failures: owasp.org A05:2025 - Injection: owasp.org A06:2025 - Insecure Design: owasp.org A07:2025 - Authentication Failures: owasp.org A08:2025 - Software or Data Integrity Failures: owasp.org A09:2025 - Security Logging and Alerting Failures: owasp.org A10 Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions: owasp.org https://github.com/KeygraphHQ/shannon: github.com anthropic.com/news/mozilla-firefox-security: www.anthropic.com generalpurpose.com/the-distillation/claude-mythos-what-it-means-for-your-business: www.generalpurpose.com Python Example Concepts: blobs.talkpython.fm Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #545 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/545 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

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#544: Wheel Next + Packaging PEPs

Apr 1001:11:17Tap to summarize

When you pip install a package with compiled code, the wheel you get is built for CPU features from 2009. Want newer optimizations like AVX2? Your installer has no way to ask for them. GPU support? You're on your own configuring special index URLs. The result is fat binaries, nearly gigabyte-sized wheels, and install pages that read like puzzle books. A coalition from NVIDIA, Astral, and QuanSight has been working on Wheel Next: A set of PEPs that let packages declare what hardware they need and let installers like uv pick the right build automatically. Just uv pip install torch and it works. I sit down with Jonathan Dekhtiar from NVIDIA, Ralf Gommers from Quansight and the NumPy and SciPy teams, and Charlie Marsh, founder of Astral and creator of uv, to dig into all of it. Episode sponsors Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26 Temporal Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guests Charlie Marsh: github.com Ralf Gommers: github.com Jonathan Dekhtiar: github.com CPU dispatcher: numpy.org build options: numpy.org Red Hat RHEL: www.redhat.com Red Hat RHEL AI: www.redhat.com RedHats presentation: wheelnext.dev CUDA release: developer.nvidia.com requires a PEP: discuss.python.org WheelNext: wheelnext.dev Github repo: github.com PEP 817: peps.python.org PEP 825: discuss.python.org uv: docs.astral.sh A variant-enabled build of uv: astral.sh pyx: astral.sh pypackaging-native: pypackaging-native.github.io PEP 784: peps.python.org Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #544 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/544 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

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#543: Deep Agents: LangChain's SDK for Agents That Plan and Delegate

Apr 101:03:53Tap to summarize

When you type a question into ChatGPT, the model only has what you typed to work with. But tools like Claude Code can plan, iterate, test, and recover from mistakes. They work more like we do. The difference is the agent harness: Planning tools, file system access, sub-agents, and carefully crafted system prompts that turn a raw LLM into something genuinely capable. Sydney Runkle is back on Talk Python representing LangChain and their new open source library, Deep Agents: A framework for building your own deep agents with plain Python functions, middleware hooks, and MCP support. This is how the magic works under the hood. Episode sponsors Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26 Agentic AI Course Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guest Sydney Runkle: github.com Claude Code uses: x.com Deep Research: openai.com Manus: manus.im Blog post announcement: blog.langchain.com Claudes system prompt: github.com sub agents: docs.anthropic.com the quick start: docs.langchain.com CLIs: github.com Talk Python's CLI: talkpython.fm custom tools: docs.langchain.com DeepAgents Examples: github.com Custom Middleware: docs.langchain.com Built in middleware: docs.langchain.com Improving Deep Agents with harness engineering: blog.langchain.com Prebuilt middleware: docs.langchain.com Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #543 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/543 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

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#542: Zensical - a modern static site generator

Mar 2501:04:03Tap to summarize

If you've built documentation in the Python ecosystem, chances are you've used Martin Donath's work. His Material for MKDocs powers docs for FastAPI, uv, AWS, OpenAI, and tens of thousands of other projects. But when MKDocs 2.0 took a direction that would break Material and 300 ecosystem plugins, Martin went back to the drawing board. The result is Zensical: A new static site generator with a Rust core, differential builds in milliseconds instead of minutes, and a migration path designed to bring the whole community along. Episode sponsors Sentry Error Monitoring, Code talkpython26 Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guest Martin Donath: github.com Zensical: zensical.org Material for MkDocs: squidfunk.github.io Getting Started: zensical.org Github pages: docs.github.com Cloudflare pages: pages.cloudflare.com Michaels Example: gist.github.com Material for MkDocs: zensical.org gohugo.io/content-management/shortcodes: gohugo.io a sense of size of the project: blobs.talkpython.fm Zensical Spark: zensical.org Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #542 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/542 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

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#541: Monty - Python in Rust for AI

Mar 1901:05:44Tap to summarize

When LLMs write code to accomplish a task, that code has to actually run somewhere. And right now, the options aren't great. Spin up a sandboxed container and you're paying a full second of cold start overhead plus the complexity of another service. Let the LLM loose on your actual machine and... well, you'd better be watching. On this episode, I sit down with Samuel Colvin, creator of Pydantic, now at 10 billion downloads, to explore Monty, a Python interpreter written from scratch in Rust, purpose-built to run LLM-generated code. It starts in microseconds, is completely sandboxed by design, and can even serialize its entire state to a database and resume later. We dig into why this deliberately limited interpreter might be exactly what the AI agent era needs. Episode sponsors Talk Python Courses Python in Production Links from the show Guest Samuel Colvin: github.com CPython: github.com IronPython: ironpython.net Jython: www.jython.org Pyodide: pyodide.org monty: github.com Pydantic AI: pydantic.dev Python AI conference: pyai.events bashkit: github.com just-bash: github.com Narwhals: narwhals-dev.github.io Polars: pola.rs Strands Agents: aws.amazon.com Subscribe Running Pydantic’s Monty Rust sandboxed Python subset in WebAssembly: simonwillison.net Rust Python: github.com Valgrind: valgrind.org Cod Speed: codspeed.io Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode #541 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/541 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

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All episodes

#550: AI Contributions and Maintainer Load in Open Source

#549: Great Docs

#548: Event Sourcing Design Pattern

#547: Parallel Python at Anyscale with Ray

#546: Self hosting apps for Python people

#545: OWASP Top 10 (2025 List) for Python Devs

#544: Wheel Next + Packaging PEPs

#543: Deep Agents: LangChain's SDK for Agents That Plan and Delegate

#542: Zensical - a modern static site generator

#541: Monty - Python in Rust for AI