#539: Catching up with the Python Typing Council

#539: Catching up with the Python Typing Council

From Talk Python To Me by Michael Kennedy

March 6, 2026 · 1h 2m · Episode 539

About this episode

The episode discusses the governance of Python's type system with members of the Python Typing Council.

You're adding type hints to your Python code, your editor is happy, autocomplete is working great. But then you switch tools and suddenly there are red squiggles everywhere. Who decides what a float annotation actually means? Or whether passing None where an int is expected should be an error? It turns out there's a five-person council dedicated to exactly these questions -- and two brand-new Rust-based type checkers are raising the bar. On this episode, I sit down with three members of the Python Typing Council -- Jelle Zijlstra, Rebecca Chen, and Carl Meyer -- to learn how the type system is governed, where the spec and the type checkers agree and disagree, and get the council's official advice on how much typing is just enough.

People in this episode

Host: Michael Kennedy

Guests: Jelle Zijlstra, Rebecca Chen, Carl Meyer

Topics covered

  • Python
  • type hints
  • type checkers
  • Python Typing Council
  • governance
  • programming

Keywords

  • type hints
  • Python Typing Council
  • type checkers
  • programming
  • float annotation
  • None type
  • governance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Python Typing Council

More episodes of Talk Python To Me

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Talk Python To Me podcast page.