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Hello Python 3.15, goodbye 3.10, and now I can use 3.11

Simon Willison · Oct 12, 2026 · Engineering Insights

Python 3.15 introduces explicit lazy imports, addressing startup performance for plugin-heavy CLI tools

Python 3.15 has been released with notable features including explicit lazy imports (PEP 810) and unpacking in comprehensions (PEP 798). The lazy import feature is particularly relevant to AI tooling as it addresses startup latency in plugin-based CLI tools like Simon Willison's LLM tool, which suffered multi-second delays from heavy dependencies like sentence_transformers. While useful for AI developers building Python tooling, this is a general Python release with no direct AI industry signal.

python developer-tooling performance llm-cli

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