Shall We Upgrade? Navigating Python's Rapid Evolution

Shall We Upgrade?
Navigating Python's Rapid Evolution

Wenxin Jiang, Jian Yin

Oct. 11, 2025

Good afternoon! I'm Jiang Wenxin. This work is done in collaboration with Yin Jian. We are both PhD students at CityUHK. Before today's talk, let me do a quick survey first: I'm sure many of you have noticed that Python 3.14 has officially launched. But how many of you have already checked out what's new in 3.14? If you have, please raise your hand. (Let me see.) All right, thank you. (Great!) Looks like many of you are already familiar with the new features. (Okay, not so many? No worries!) That’s exactly why I’m here today. So the goal of this talk is simple: I wanna share my experience in how to catch up with the latest changes. We’ll take a look at several changes from Python 3.10 to 3.14. You’ll see how these changes are making Python even more enjoyable to use. Let's get started.

Release Rhythm · Where We Are

Source: Status of Python versions:
devguide.python.org/versions/

What’s New Series · How to Follow

Official doc: docs.python.org/3/whatsnew
Each feature is specified in the PEP (Python Enhancement Proposal)

Screenshot of the 'What's New in Python' hub showing sections like Release Highlights, New Features, Optimizations

Docs hub: What's New in Python · PEP index.

So, how do we keep up with all these changes? I’d like to highlight two key resources: the 'What's New' pages and PEPs. Think of the 'What's New' page as a summary for each release. It's a perfect way for us to quickly get a high-level overview of the most important updates. But when we need more details of a specific feature, here's the PEP. Python Enhancement Proposal, is the official design document. It gives you the technical details, motivation and rationale behind a change. Here's how an idea becomes a Python feature: It usually starts with discussion on public forums. If there's enough interest, someone will draft a proposal. They will find a core dev to sponsor it, submit it as a pull request to the PEPs repository. Then, discuss and refine it. The proposal eventually goes to the Steering Council for a final decision. This open process is a core strength of the Python ecosystem. In short, the What's New page tells us what has changed, while the PEP explains why and how.

Structure of "What's New" Pages

Core Features

Release Highlights
New Features
Type Hints
Other Language Changes

Technical Details

Interpreter / Security / C API
Optimizations
New & Improved Modules
Deprecated & Removed Modules

Tip: Start with highlights → New Features → [your interests].

3.10 · New syntax feature:
Structural Pattern Matching

Declarative match/case replaces nested if/elif

def http_error(status):
    match status:
        case 400:
          return "Bad request"
        case 401 | 403 | 404:
          return "Not allowed"
        case _: # wildcard
          return "Something's wrong"

Docs: What’s New in 3.10 · PEPs: PEP 634, 635, 636.

3.10 · New typing feature:
Union Types

# before
from typing import Union
def fun(x: Union[str, bytes]):
# after
def f(x: str | bytes):

Docs: What's New in 3.10 · PEP: PEP 604, PEP 613, PEP 647.

3.11 · Highlights: A Free Speed Boost

CPython 3.11 is an average of 25% faster than 3.10, with 10–60% overall speed improvements.

Faster Startup: Interpreter startup is now 10-15% faster.
Faster Runtime: Cheaper, lazy Python frames

Bar chart showing speed improvements of Python 3.11 over 3.10 across various benchmarks

Docs: What’s New in 3.11 (Release highlights) · Benchmark

3.13 · Experimental Free‑Threaded

Global Interpreter Lock ensures only one Python thread executes at a time

✓ Benefits

True parallel execution for CPU-bound tasks
Better multi-core utilization
No need for multiprocessing overhead

⚠ Trade-offs

Single-threaded code may be slower
C extensions need compatibility updates
Memory usage increases

Docs: What's New in 3.13 · PEP 703: Making the GIL Optional

3.14 · Official Free‑Threaded
& Multiple interpreters

PEP 779: Free‑threaded Python is officially supported (still optional).
PEP 734: Multiple interpreters in the stdlib for true multi‑core parallelism.

Docs: What’s New in 3.14 · PEP 779 · PEP 734 ·

Package Migration · uv

🚀 Replace pip with similar interface
⚡️ 10-100x faster than pip
🗂️ Provides comprehensive project management

uv init # create project
# install and pin specific Python version
uv python install 3.13
uv python pin 3.13
# install packages
uv add package-name
uv add -r requirements.txt

Docs: uv: install Python · Migration guide: pip to uv.

Takeaways

Annual release: 3.11 (2022), 3.12 (2023), 3.13 (2024), 3.14 (2025)...
"What’s New" pages summarize key changes.
PEPs provide detailed design docs for new features.
Check Compatibility: Test it before using it.
Stay curious and keep exploring features!

Thank you for attention!

Wenxin Jiang
GitHub: LucaJiang
This presentation: lucajiang.github.io/new_in_python/