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Posted by willm 9/2/2025

Python has had async for 10 years – why isn't it more popular?(tonybaloney.github.io)
324 points | 295 commentspage 8
6510 9/2/2025|
I've always felt like there is some hidden clue in music trackers. They program the music as spaghetti code with unlimited channel running neatly along the same line numbers.
mting 9/3/2025||
I would prefer to implement it using a synchronous approach and then switch to asynchronous at deployment via kafka etc this way could simply focus on bussniss logical
liquidpele 9/3/2025||
Because it’s terrible. People don’t avoid non-terrible things.
taude 9/2/2025||
Use an appropriate language and runtime for the right tool/workload. There's better languages and runtimes to use that have better native concurrency built in.
game_the0ry 9/2/2025||
I will take a couple stabs:

- Async is a legitimately hard to get if you are just starting to learn it, which is probably why its isn't more popular in the python community.

- If you need async, that implies you need hi I/O performance. At that point, you probably should have picked a more performant language + runtime (Java, Node), bc use case should dictate tooling.

- It's not enough to make a language + web framework to be async -- the DB drivers need to be async too (author mentions sqlalechemy got async support in 2023 and django orm is a WIP).

I like python, but not bc its async or multi-threaded. I like it bc when I use it, I know I do not have to worry about those things and the new set of problems I have to handle when I do.

For the i/o and multi-threaded perf, give me java and node (maybe erlang/elixir if I am feeling extra spicy). For the fast and easy scripting, with massive community of open source of talent and high quality libraries (including the vast majority of web app slop), give me python.

hoppp 9/2/2025|
To be frank someone who picks python is not doing it because they want the best performance.

Its either because its the only language they know or they just don't really care about performance and want to finish the project fast.

game_the0ry 9/2/2025||
Agreed, bc I have been that "someone."

And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, this should be the norm.

didip 9/2/2025||
It would have been a lot more popular if it has a shim that lets it pretend to be a regular thread. Folks don't like to perform a lot of rewrites.
fullstop 9/2/2025||
Exceptions are difficult to deal with. Also, while they've had async for 10 years it has changed quite a bit from the initial incarnation.
blibble 9/2/2025|
there are some Exception situations that are almost completely impossible to deal with

like guaranteeing a close() inside a finally

asyncio is a terrible, terrible library

JodieBenitez 9/2/2025||
Why isn't it more popular ? Well, replacing libs and functions with async versions is not fun.
andrewstuart 9/2/2025|
Not popular?

I use async all the time.

The evidence this post provides is that flask and Django aren’t all in on async.

That’s meaningless.

kamikaz1k 9/2/2025|
if you're going to lobby that criticism, you should atleast offer an alternative definition of popular...unless you're saying your usage of a tool defines its popularity
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