Network programming has been a part of Python since its earliest days. Not only are there a wide variety of standard library modules ranging from low-level socket programming to various aspects of Web programming, there are a large number of third-party packages that simplify various tasks or provide different kinds of I/O models. As the network evolves and new standards emerge, though, one can’t help but wonder whether the existing set of networking libraries are up to the task. For example, if you start to look at technologies such as websockets, HTTP/2, or coroutines, the whole picture starts to get rather fuzzy. Is there any room for innovation in this space? Or must one be resigned to legacy approaches from its past. In this article, I spend some time exploring some projects that are at the edge of Python networking. This includes my own Curio project as well as some protocol implementation libraries, including hyper-h2 and h11.
