Live data from Hacker News

Python 2.8?

lwn.net

11–20 of 74 posts

Re: Python 2.8?

#11
post #8
post #3

The 2.X => 3.X transition really appears to have been bungled here, which is a shame. I really liked Python before I got deeply into the .Net world, but it has become less than enticing with this fragmentation. Meanwhile other languages seem to have taken up the vanguard position, which leaves Python in kind of an awkward position, between the new hotness and the tried-and-true enterprisey ecosystems

>The 2.X => 3.X transition really appears to have been bungled here, which is a shame. Obviously, the question is what went wrong. Personally I think the dev team gave users too much time to switch. The Python devs should have only given users one or two years to upgrade. Making it clear that all support for Python 2 would end after that period. Another mistake was that when originally released Python 3 did not offer…

> Another mistake was that when originally released Python 3 did not offer enough shiny new things to convince people that going through the pain of upgrading was worthwhile.

This is the core issue, but you're putting cart before horse a bit: if there's not much to gain from switching, why would any reasonable person switch? And, most importantly, why is it a problem that needs solving at all?

Re: Python 2.8?

#12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The 2.X => 3.X transition really appears to have been bungled here, which is a shame. Obviously, the question is what went wrong. Personally I think the dev team gave users too much time to switch. The Python devs should have only given users one or two years to upgrade. Making it clear that all support for Python 2 would end after that period. Another mistake was that when originally released Python 3 did not offer…

No, the problem is that Python 3 sucked, and still sucks. Twisting your user's arms even more painfully won't solve the problem, it will just accelerate users switching away to other languages or forks.

There's plenty of problems with Python 3 and the transition, none of them are that "Python 3 sucks".

You know that, of course, otherwise you'd have provided an actual claim rather than a generic complaint.

Re: Python 2.8?

#13
I am afraid that, the python community has messed up 2.x => 3.X transition. Until 3.3, there seemed no incentive to port your codebase to Python 3.X.

With golang getting a lot of traction and compiler tools like grumpy (python -> Go), I would rather invest time to transition into golang as apposed to transition to 3.X.

Re: Python 2.8?

#14
post #7

I'm glad Guido considers this a toy. Anyone interested in helping out the github repo is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/placeholder

He's right though. Backporting features will be hard, and it looks like the wrong move. If you wanted to fork just fork, and evolve python 2.7 on its own. Why try to create an inferior python 3?

I could see security fix releases be useful. Giving people more time to transition is going to benefit some projects. But in terms of feature, it does sound toyish.

Appart from that, it actually doesn't look like there's any problem here. The maintener agreed to change the name.

I don't expect this project to exist for very long unless it breaks free, but if it tries to just bring 3 features back to 2, I'm not sure it'll make sense for very long.

Re: Python 2.8?

#15

The amount of trolling in that thread is incredible. I don't understand why an average Joe needs to contradict Guido on trademark matters.

Because some people are hateful by nature and see Guido as Satan incarnate for "hating Python 2". And no, I'm not exaggerating, you just need to look at the comments: https://github.com/naftaliharris/placeholder/issues/47#issue... I read through that thread the other day and it breaks my heart to know that there are people who think like that. Honestly. On various occasions I've reasoned (and not reasoned) with the m…

Team Red, Team Blue, Team Three, Team Two

(no direct relation to political parties intended)

Re: Python 2.8?

#16
post #14
post #7

I'm glad Guido considers this a toy. Anyone interested in helping out the github repo is here: https://github.com/naftaliharris/placeholder

He's right though. Backporting features will be hard, and it looks like the wrong move. If you wanted to fork just fork, and evolve python 2.7 on its own. Why try to create an inferior python 3? I could see security fix releases be useful. Giving people more time to transition is going to benefit some projects. But in terms of feature, it does sound toyish. Appart from that, it actually doesn't look like there's any…

The problem is some of the massive python modules that cannot be ported from 2.7 to 3 .x

Re: Python 2.8?

#17
post #3

The 2.X => 3.X transition really appears to have been bungled here, which is a shame. I really liked Python before I got deeply into the .Net world, but it has become less than enticing with this fragmentation. Meanwhile other languages seem to have taken up the vanguard position, which leaves Python in kind of an awkward position, between the new hotness and the tried-and-true enterprisey ecosystems

I'm curious why this is so downvoted...

Re: Python 2.8?

#18
post #13

I am afraid that, the python community has messed up 2.x => 3.X transition. Until 3.3, there seemed no incentive to port your codebase to Python 3.X. With golang getting a lot of traction and compiler tools like grumpy (python -> Go), I would rather invest time to transition into golang as apposed to transition to 3.X.

Transitioning from Python to Go isn't as easy as you make it out to be. Good luck finding solid alternatives to the likes of Numpy, scikit-learn, Pandas, SQLAlchemy, BeautifulSoup, Flask etc. Oh, and not to mention the community surrounding these and other popular Python libraries.

Re: Python 2.8?

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right though. Backporting features will be hard, and it looks like the wrong move. If you wanted to fork just fork, and evolve python 2.7 on its own. Why try to create an inferior python 3? I could see security fix releases be useful. Giving people more time to transition is going to benefit some projects. But in terms of feature, it does sound toyish. Appart from that, it actually doesn't look like there's any…

The problem is some of the massive python modules that cannot be ported from 2.7 to 3 .x

Which ones specifically? Many massive ones that held out for a long time are either done or in the process of porting. (twisted, openstack, almost all web frameworks, etc.)

PS. https://python3wos.appspot.com/ now shows only few packages not marked as compatible from the most popular ones. One group (carbon, graphite, supervisor) are not libraries so they don't really affect others. The other is specific moz* libraries - and they're for Mozilla's internal testing, so nobody else should care that much.

Re: Python 2.8?

#20
post #18
post #13

I am afraid that, the python community has messed up 2.x => 3.X transition. Until 3.3, there seemed no incentive to port your codebase to Python 3.X. With golang getting a lot of traction and compiler tools like grumpy (python -> Go), I would rather invest time to transition into golang as apposed to transition to 3.X.

Transitioning from Python to Go isn't as easy as you make it out to be. Good luck finding solid alternatives to the likes of Numpy, scikit-learn, Pandas, SQLAlchemy, BeautifulSoup, Flask etc. Oh, and not to mention the community surrounding these and other popular Python libraries.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN