while troubleshooting some awkward side effect of my app failing as far as I import tqdm, I discovered that tqdm unconditionally imports ipython (and probably other functionality if present, such as pandas) even if I have no intent on using it. It adds quite quite an overhead to the import, e.g.

with ipython installed/available

buildbot@922f7d817f64:~/build-custom$ time python -c 'import tqdm'

real    0m0.194s
user    0m0.168s
sys     0m0.020s

without:

(venv-ci) buildbot@922f7d817f64:~/build-custom$ time python -c 'import tqdm'

real    0m0.057s
user    0m0.040s
sys     0m0.012s

i.e. having ipython available contributes now almost 300% penalty
I guess ideally all those imports should happen only if related functionality is requested