I think both R and Python are great mediums for package development and data science. You can use Claude Code within Positron no problem, and it’s a great environment for doing data analysis. You still need notebooks, plots, data explorer, etc :)
I still use Positron! But I’m not using IDEs for software development much anymore. Data science is a different story
@wesmckinney.com is on an absolute tear. 🔥
The pandas creator is leveraging AI to rapidly ship tools, crossing Swift, Go, and Python to build Agents View, VibePulse, roborev, moneyflow, msgvault, Spicy Takes...
@richmeister.bsky.social breaks it down on the Posit blog: posit.co/blog/the-pro...
"Working with agents is a lot more productive, but a lot less fun." Charlie Marsh on the weird world of building software right now. Full conversation on The Test Set.
I will when I can! Look at me still talking when there’s science to do …
roborev does GitHub now! Just shipped the initial GitHub PR experience, multi-agent / multi-prompt reviews that synthesize to a single coherent review response:
www.roborev.io/integrations...
Had a great time on @posit.co 's Test Set pod w/ @mchow.com @hadley.nz @wesmckinney.com!
We talk about moving between R, SQL, python and the strengths of different analytical tools for diff data tasks. You won't believe what proprietary language gets a shout-out (Stata!)
posit.co/thetestset/e...
roborev can now analyze and systematically refactor your code for you — this is essential to managing the poor code quality of agents in rapidly expanding agentic code bases. Game changer for me
www.roborev.io/guides/assis...
roborev now supports Windows (x64 and ARM)! Lots of new features and quality-of-life features, too (such as `y` to copy-paste/yank review to clipboard to paste into your agent session)
www.roborev.io/installation/
Any now there were 14. Welcoming @joereis.bsky.social to Spicy Takes!
joereis.spicytakes.org
A funny thing is happening: the more I build with agents, the less I want to use Python. I explore this in my latest "From Human Ergonomics to Agent Ergonomics"
wesmckinney.com/blog/agent-e...
Join Wes McKinney (@wesmckinney.com) and the Pixeltable @pixeltable.net team, Marcel Kornacker and Alison Hill (@apreshill.com), for a fireside chat hosted by Hugo Bowne-Anderson on Dec 16!
They will discuss data processing and #AI workflows for multimodal data 📊
Register: luma.com/2y04b6nf
Super interesting @wesmckinney.com insight: AI may stagnate Open Source - because users will be much more inclined to adopt software that AI tools can help them with, rather than newer tools that it isn't trained on yet.
Kind of a "snake eating tail" problem as far as generating new training data.
“Parquet is great… until GPUs, multimodal data & million-column schemas show up.”
The creator of pandas/Arrow @wesmckinney.com digs into Arrow vs Parquet, new columnar + table formats, DataFusion/DuckDB, metadata headaches, and what AI coding agents mean for open source infra.
Episode link below
🚀 Launching Supermetal — data replication that just works.
Sync databases to warehouses in real-time or batch — no Kafka, no JVM, no Debezium. Built in Rust & Apache Arrow.
Try it → trial.supermetal.io
Launch post → supermetal.io/blog/launch
The future of data connectivity is columnar. Today we launched
@columnar.tech to accelerate the shift from slow, row-oriented APIs like ODBC and JDBC to >10x faster alternatives powered by @arrow.apache.org. Learn more 👇
It was such a pleasure to join @hadley.nz, @wesmckinney.com, and @mchow.com on THE TEST SET! You can check out the two parts of our conversation here:
🍕 posit.co/thetestset/e...
🤖 posit.co/thetestset/e...
F3: The Open-Source Data File Format for the Future SIGMOD 2025
Our SIGMOD paper with our friends at Tsinghua + @wesmckinney.com + @pateljm.bsky.social on creating a next generation open-source data file format is out. F3 is a future-proof file format avoids the mistakes of Parquet.
📄 Paper: db.cs.cmu.edu/papers/2025/...
📁 Code: github.com/future-file-...
In September the @columnar.tech crew are headed to PyData Paris 2025 and the first ever Apache Arrow Summit. The organizer @quantstack.bsky.social is a dedicated supporter of @arrow.apache.org. We’re delighted to be sponsoring the event.
Data science junkies, get ready! 🚀 "The Test Set" #podcast trailer is here for your viewing pleasure.
Tune in July 1st and every Tuesday after for new episodes with hosts @mchow.com, @hadley.nz, and @wesmckinney.com as they welcome thought leaders in #DataScience.
Subscribe now: pos.it/thetestset
Feel free to DM or email me — I’m still very much “pro conda-forge” and prefer installing R stuff that way, so I am sympathetic to the viewpoint
🚀 Introducing **Bauplan**
A serverless, code-native platform for building data and AI pipelines — directly on your object store. No clusters. No notebooks. No GUI based workflows.
Just Python + SQL + S3.
👉 www.bauplanlabs.com/blog/hello-b...
1/ We just raised $17M to build the multimodal data stack for Physical AI! 🚀
Lead: pointnine.com
With: costanoa.vc, Sunflower Capital,
@seedcamp.com
Angels including: @rauchg.blue, Eric Jang, Oliver Cameron, @wesmckinney.com , Nicolas Dessaigne, Arnav Bimbhet
Thesis: rerun.io/blog/physica...
