The Test Set by Posit
A Posit podcast for data science junkies, anomaly hunters, and those who play outside the confidence interval. Hosted by Michael Chow, with co-hosts Wes McKinney & Hadley Wickham.
The Test Set by Posit
Wes McKinney: Part 2 — The open source hustle and an insider view of Positron
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Season 1
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Episode 3
In part two of our conversation with Wes McKinney, we dig into the challenges and realities of sustaining open source development. Wes shares how funding actually works (or doesn’t), why corporate buy-in is essential, and what it’s like building tools across languages, communities, and IDEs. We also talk about the Apache Software Foundation’s role in open governance and the origin of the Positron IDE.
What’s Inside:
- Why passion isn’t enough for open source to scale
- Apache Arrow’s origin story and how it was pitched
- How open governance enables trust between competitors
- The thinking behind Positron, Posit’s next-gen IDE
- Polyglot programming – Designing tools that bridge the R/Python divide
- LLMs and data UX: Why modern IDEs need to serve both humans and models
- Day-to-day coding, advising, investing, and context-switching
- Metalheads unite
