Tutorials - Cheuk Ting Ho: PyO3 101 - Writing Python modules in Rust

In recent years, Rust has been getting more and more popular over other similar programming languages like C and C++ due to its robust compiler checking and ownership rules to make sure memory is safe. Hence there are more and more Python libraries that have been written in Rust natively with a Python API interface. One of the tools that have been driving this movement is PyO3, a toolset that proves Rust bindings for Python and tools for creating native Python extension modules. In this interactive workshop, we will cover the very basics of using PyO3. There will be hands-on exercises to go from how to set up the project environment to writing a "toy" Python library written in Rust using PyO3. We will cover a lot of expectations of the API provided by PyO3 to create Python functions, modules, handling errors and converting types. Goal To give developers who are not familiar with PyO3 an introduction to PyO3 so they can consider building their Python libraries with Rust to make use of Rust's memory-safe property and parallelism ability. Target audiences Any developers who are interested in developing Python libraries using Rust. It will be an advantage if the attendees are comfortable writing in Rust. However, attendees are not required to be familiar with Rust as all the Rust codes will be provided. Basic knowledge of Python will be assumed from the attendees.