PyConDE & PyData Berlin 2024

Haystack 2.0: the story of a rewrite
04-22, 12:15–12:45 (Europe/Berlin), B09

To rewrite or not to rewrite: it's a major question.

Releasing new software versions with breaking changes can be disruptive to a community, but sometimes they are necessary in the long run to move forward. 

Haystack is a free open source Python LLM framework. It was launched in 2020, before LLMs were cool. In 2023 we decided to undergo a major re-architecture, culminating in the GA release of Haystack 2.0. It wasn't an easy decision. By involving the open source community and some big companies in our design process early on, we are confident we built a more usable, flexible foundation for years to come.

In this talk I'll tell you the story of this rewrite. The decisions we made to bring the project forward with the right level of flexibility / composability in the rapidly changing LLM landscape. I won't only show you the new features 2.0 provides, but give you a peek into our future roadmap. You'll walk away with a better understanding of how modern LLM frameworks can help you solve problems for yourself and your users, as well as an enriched understanding of how to think for the long-term when building for an open source community.

You’ll see how the strength of Haystack modularity and ease of use makes it stand out from other libraries. Demos will make it much clear and give you some great ideas on how to integrate Haystack in your projects.


To rewrite or not to rewrite: it's a major question.

Releasing new software versions with breaking changes can be disruptive to a community, but sometimes they are necessary in the long run to move forward. 

Haystack is a free open source Python LLM framework. It was launched in 2020, before LLMs were cool. In 2023 we decided to undergo a major re-architecture, culminating in the GA release of Haystack 2.0. It wasn't an easy decision. By involving the open source community and some big companies in our design process early on, we are confident we built a more usable, flexible foundation for years to come.

In this talk I'll tell you the story of this rewrite. The decisions we made to bring the project forward with the right level of flexibility / composability in the rapidly changing LLM landscape. I won't only show you the new features 2.0 provides, but give you a peek into our future roadmap. You'll walk away with a better understanding of how modern LLM frameworks can help you solve problems for yourself and your users, as well as an enriched understanding of how to think for the long-term when building for an open source community.

You’ll see how the strength of Haystack modularity and ease of use makes it stand out from other libraries. Demos will make it much clear and give you some great ideas on how to integrate Haystack in your projects.


Expected audience expertise: Domain

Novice

Expected audience expertise: Python

Novice

Abstract as a tweet (X) or toot (Mastodon)

To rewrite or not to rewrite, that is the question. Come and find out why we decided to rewrite Haystack from scratch to make it the best AI framework in the world!

Generalist software engineer that worked in tons of different languages. Expert in Python and C++. Worked for companies in different fields like Arduino and Pitch. Currently at deepset playing with AI.