According to TheRegister.com, Python Enhancement Proposal 810 “Explicit lazy imports” was approved on November 3 after being submitted by Steering Council Member Pablo Salgadoon on October 3. The proposal drew more than 450 comments during its review process and represents a solution to Python’s slow startup times caused by loading unused imports. Unlike previous failed attempts like PEP 690, this implementation makes lazy imports opt-in rather than default, addressing concerns about backward compatibility and community fragmentation. The feature will defer loading imported libraries until they’re actually needed rather than at program startup. Barry Warsaw of the Python Steering Council acknowledged this has been “a feature so many in the Python community have wanted for so long.”
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Why this actually matters
Here’s the thing about Python imports – they’re both incredibly powerful and incredibly frustrating. You write a simple command-line tool, and suddenly you’re waiting seconds for libraries to load that you might not even use in that particular execution. It’s like unpacking your entire kitchen just to make a cup of coffee. And developers have been dealing with this for years through various workarounds and even custom solutions that never became standard.
What makes PEP 810 different from previous attempts? Basically, it learned from past mistakes. PEP 690 tried to make lazy imports the default behavior, which scared people worried about breaking existing code. This time around, it’s opt-in – you choose when to use it. That’s a much safer approach for a language as widely used as Python.
The real impact on developers
So who actually benefits from this? Pretty much everyone, but especially people building command-line tools, microservices, and anything that needs to start quickly. Think about data scientists running quick scripts or DevOps tools that get called frequently. The difference might be seconds per execution, but those seconds add up when you’re running something thousands of times a day.
But here’s what’s interesting – this isn’t some revolutionary new concept. The community discussion shows that people have been implementing their own lazy import systems for years. Some organizations even forked CPython to get this functionality. Now they’ll have a standard way to do it without hacking around the system.
When will we actually see this?
Now for the bad news – it’s going to be a while. TheRegister notes that “it will be a while before the fruits of PEP 810 reach developers.” These language changes take time to implement and test properly. But the fact that it’s officially approved means the hardest part is over.
Looking back at previous discussions about PEP 690, you can see why this approval is such a big deal. The Python community moves carefully, and getting consensus on something that touches something as fundamental as imports is no small feat. The fact that they found a compromise that satisfied most people suggests this feature has a real chance of succeeding where others failed.
