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Why I'm Making Python 2.8
211–220 of 392 posts
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is how you keep using those efficient, numerically-stable subroutines written by a smart guy who retired 20 years ago in your new code. Unlike Python, Fortran has managed to add significant new features without breaking old code.
Unlike Python, Fortran hasn't seen an increase in usage and hasn't brought the joy(?) of programming to thousands of new programmers in the last 10 years. So sticking to Fortran or backwards compatibility blindly doesn't solve all the problems, either. Maintenance is key. Most people don't stick around for 20 years anymore either. I know I'm going to have an easier time finding a new hire for a Python codebase. And h…
Fair enough. But having worked with Fortran code that was designed in pen on yellow legal pads, typed in, and run on a suite of standard test problems chosen to expose subtle bugs, I have learned to respect an archaic engineering style of which few people are capable nowadays. Sometimes code is essentially "finished;" you'd be amazed at how rarely it has bugs. It should be changed only with care and for good reasons, not because the programming language changed to conform to some new fad.
(FWIW, I'd probably write most new numerical code in Julia rather than Fortran 20xx, and either call into existing Fortran via FFI, or drive it from the command line with some scripting language.)
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#213> And the majority of Python code written does not run under any of the 3.x interpreters. This makes it harder for its users to be productive. What a load of bollocks. For new projects this only matters if libraries aren't ported, which they are for the most part. For old projects, either you're in a situation where you can spend time porting your code to Python 3, or you don't; but as TFA mentioned pep-404, the writ…
I think after 5 years we should came to the realization that Python 3.x is not the future of Python. You can't blame people to try to find solution.
Except it kinda is the current version to lots of us. I moved to Python as a hobbyist from .net languages and loved the freedom of not having an IDE and working with Linux. The first decent book I read was on Python 3 so I learned Python 3. Lots of us 'newcomers' (not so new in my case) learnt on Python 3, find perfectly good library support in Python 3. In fact the 'old guard', sound a bit like my Dad talking about how old cars or pre decimal currency to me. I just don't find myself hitting problems I can't solve on Python 3, that I could have solved under Python 2. To be fair I have a pretty minimal amount of code in production, but in each case it is not so monolithic that I couldn't have some of it using Python 2 and some using Python 3 or even some other language for that matter.
Python 3 is not only the future but the current version of Python. It is the version kids learn in School (in the UK kids do some CS from the age of 6 or 7, starting on scratch and then normally Python), it is the version colleges teach.
However there are lots of reasons enterprise users may want to use a legacy codebase. It is not like Python 2.7 is about to stop working! When a section needs a major re-write, then consider porting it. I don't see how this is different to any obsolescence problem. I know an enterprise software company that wrote a lot of stuff in VB6. Some of it is still in VB6 and they have to manage everything that means (especially around 64 bit architecture problems), when they do major updates they use .net. How can we be in the technology game and not just except that life moves on!
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please please please explain how that is inhibiting or restraining personal freedom. Or how it is inhibiting or preventing the expression or awareness of your thoughts or desires.
> Or how it is inhibiting or preventing the expression or awareness of your thoughts or desires. How's that difficult to parse? It is stomping on the desire to keep my 2.x userbase AND receive updates for the language.
Oh, but you're expressing your thoughts and desires perfectly well though. You want someone else (not you, of course) to maintain Python 2 for you for the princely sum of of £0.00, so that you don't have to do any work on upgrading to Python 3.
And when the time finally comes around that those people, who have been maintaining Python 2 for many many years (for free), want to focus their efforts on an easier to maintain and more modern language that actually has a future they are repressing you?
Get real.
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#215> And the majority of Python code written does not run under any of the 3.x interpreters. This makes it harder for its users to be productive. What a load of bollocks. For new projects this only matters if libraries aren't ported, which they are for the most part. For old projects, either you're in a situation where you can spend time porting your code to Python 3, or you don't; but as TFA mentioned pep-404, the writ…
I currently work for a client who has decided to shift away from PHP and towards Python. They had a monolithic PHP app with perhaps 250,000 lines of code. Now we are developing a series of Python apps in the microservices style. We've decided to develop everything as Python 2.7. We are not looking at Python 3.x. There are a few reasons. Some libraries that we want are in Python 2.7. And Amazon only supports 2.7. And…
Could you tell us which libraries you want don't support 3.x?
Genuinely curious as i thought nearly all of the main ones were ported now
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#216> And the majority of Python code written does not run under any of the 3.x interpreters. This makes it harder for its users to be productive. What a load of bollocks. For new projects this only matters if libraries aren't ported, which they are for the most part. For old projects, either you're in a situation where you can spend time porting your code to Python 3, or you don't; but as TFA mentioned pep-404, the writ…
> I don't know what recourse the PSF has but maybe they should even go all in and defend the "Python" name so as to prevent confusion and stop a potential community fracture. Just call it anything else but "Python 2.8" is not Python. This! A thousand times! I love open source and free software. I absolutely love the fact that you can fork the code and adapt it to your needs. If you find others who like it great! But…
Not only should the PSF intervene to prevent someone else from using the Python name, they legally must intervene if they wish to keep their trademark ( see http://privacyandip.blogspot.com/2011/10/common-questions-wh... ).
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
If moving to a 2010 version of your programming language is slow and tedious you're doing something very wrong. In the Java world (conservative and slow-moving) JRE 7 (2011) is considered the absolute minimum, and if you're not targeting JRE 8 (2014) you have to have a very good reason.
> If moving to a 2010 version of your programming language is slow and tedious you're doing something very wrong. You mean like, dealing with strings and Unicode? That's usually the case why people have trouble migrating to Python 3.
The 2010 version he's referring to is Python 2.7.
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please please please explain how that is inhibiting or restraining personal freedom. Or how it is inhibiting or preventing the expression or awareness of your thoughts or desires.
> Or how it is inhibiting or preventing the expression or awareness of your thoughts or desires. How's that difficult to parse? It is stomping on the desire to keep my 2.x userbase AND receive updates for the language.
It would not prevent you from receiving updates, it would prevent you from receiving updates for free. You may of course pay somebody to update 2.7 for you. The Python Software Foundation never promised they would continue maintaining any release indefinitely, and it's unreasonable to expect them to do so. But in fact they are continuing to fix critical bugs even in 2.7, so they are being generous. Nobody is being blackmailed or repressed.
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I currently work for a client who has decided to shift away from PHP and towards Python. They had a monolithic PHP app with perhaps 250,000 lines of code. Now we are developing a series of Python apps in the microservices style. We've decided to develop everything as Python 2.7. We are not looking at Python 3.x. There are a few reasons. Some libraries that we want are in Python 2.7. And Amazon only supports 2.7. And…
If I was your client I'd be pissed that you decided to rewrite my code into a legacy version of Python. Make no mistake: Python 3 is the future of Python. There will be no version 2.8 and there is no going back to 2.7. Also, I don't know what you mean by "Amazon only supports 2.7" because boto (the main client for Python) has supported Python 3 for 2 years now. Perhaps you mean Lambda?
+1. Also it's easy to write code that supports both, so if you really need python 2 support right now (surely AWS Lambda python 3 is coming soon, you can already use it unofficially) that's a much better option than being entrenched in python 2 (mainly the string handling is the issue for buggy code that'll run in 2 but not 3).
Re: Why I'm Making Python 2.8
#220> And the majority of Python code written does not run under any of the 3.x interpreters. This makes it harder for its users to be productive. What a load of bollocks. For new projects this only matters if libraries aren't ported, which they are for the most part. For old projects, either you're in a situation where you can spend time porting your code to Python 3, or you don't; but as TFA mentioned pep-404, the writ…
I currently work for a client who has decided to shift away from PHP and towards Python. They had a monolithic PHP app with perhaps 250,000 lines of code. Now we are developing a series of Python apps in the microservices style. We've decided to develop everything as Python 2.7. We are not looking at Python 3.x. There are a few reasons. Some libraries that we want are in Python 2.7. And Amazon only supports 2.7. And…
Breaking it down to microservices, could you not have some parts as 2.7, like any that need a specific library that does not have Python 3 support, and some in 3. Or for that matter GO, or RUST?