A roughly three-hour Lex Fridman podcast conversation with Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python. Topics include Python's design, the GIL, asyncio, the future of programming and AI coding tools.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN points to it for Guido's own views on the GIL, Python internals and using Copilot, especially in Python-related threads.
“I recommend this interview to get a slightly better glimpse of the guy”HN comment, 2022
“I recommend this interview to get a slightly better glimpse of the guy”
Interview giving a better sense of Guido's views.
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This is baseless conjecture and completely without merit. Guido was intimately involved with this speed-up work. I've disagreed with Guido over things but the things you're saying are just weird. I recommend this interview to get a slightly better glimpse of the guy: this video
RecommendsfernandotakaiJul 2023
“i would also recommend another two of his interviews”
Lex Fridman interview with Guido van Rossum.
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link for people that want to watch it: link i would also recommend another two of his interviews: Todd Howard link Guido van Rossun this video
Cites itfrflJul 2023
“Guido van Rossum did mention the status of the GIL in one of the Lex Friedman episodes”
Guido discusses the GIL's status.
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If I remember Guido van Rossum did mention the status of the GIL in one of the Lex Friedman episodes [1] he was on (it's been a while, so I may be misremembering). Surprised to see a big decision like this happen so quickly. Did Meta's announcement play a big role in this [2]? [1]: this video [2]: link
Cites itmobiuscogDec 2023
“There was some high-level discussion of this in the chat Guido van Rossum had with Lex Fridman (timestamped)”
Timestamped discussion of Python internals with Guido.
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There was some high-level discussion of this in the chat Guido van Rossum had with Lex Fridman (timestamped): this video
Cites itvonneumannstanFeb 2025
“My biggest adjustment with using Copilot was that instead of writing code, my posture shifted to reviewing code.”
Guido describes using Copilot daily as code review.
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Yeah unironically. Guido van Rossum - "I use it every day. My biggest adjustment with using Copilot was that instead of writing code, my posture shifted to reviewing code." this video Here's Jeff Dean saying 25% of the characters in new PRs at Google are AI Generated. link Andrej Karpathy - "I basically can't imagine going back to "unassisted" coding at this point" link Andrew Ng - "I run multiple models on my laptop — Mistral, Llama, Zefa. And I use ChatGPT quite often. " link Simon Willison link I mean I can keep going. I doubt you would compare yourself to these people.