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Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

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Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#91

Post by wirrbel »

The best way would be to release a python 2.9 which incorporates most of the changes from 2 to 3 but the unicode change.

The Δ between Python 2 and Python 3 was just too wide. Even with breaking changes, with a small Δ people will just migrate eventually. Migrating projects drag each other over the "barrier" just like water in a hose can be sucked over a wall.

The issue definitely was not the print command, but other things such as ``iteritems()``, etc - by themselves not much to keep you from migrating, but there is a pile of these boring changes next to the big one (unicode).

I think Guido overestimated the appeal of the new unicode handling and underestimated how resentful people are to change. I figure that at least 1/4 of programmers are actually very opposed to each and every migration and a new version has to have enough incentives to counterbalance this built-in conservativeness.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#92

Post by a1a »

dragonwriter wrote: post #83
a1a wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tool of your trade": I have no use of python 3, nor do I have any use for Scala, Perl, or whatever. These could all be considered "tools of my trade". I rarely write anything high language besides small scripts. Python 2 does the job. If I ever were to need functionality of another language, great, it's fun to learn something new. Our time is limited and we must prioritize. Sadly we cannot invest time to learn every…

> I have no use of python 3 You admit you haven't done any research, so you clearly don't have any basis for making that statement.

Nor have I done research on Perl, Scala, etc. Your missing my point. I am successfully getting my things done in Python 2. I do not have any use for Python 3, Perl, Scala, or any other language. I might have in the future, and hey, some language might be better suited to solve the problem - but as long as it's not drastically better the sensible tradeoff is to stick with Python 2.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#93

Post by wisty »

a1a wrote: post #34
chimeracoder wrote: post #11

This is really disappointing to see - I fear that it will slow adoption of Python 3 even further, when it was just reaching a tipping point[0]. When I first learned Python, I learned Python 3 first because it was newer, and I figured everyone would be using it soon enough. Little did I know that Python 2 would continue to be supported for over ten years after that! Some people make a big deal about figuring out "whic…

On the other hand, if you are comfortable with Python 2, it will do the job, and you know it will be supported for a foreseeable future, why bother learning Python 3? I assume there is a good answer for switching to Python 3, but I honestly don't know (haven't bothered to do any research though). Harshly put: I care about getting my python script working as soon as possible and for a foreseeable future - I couldn't c…

If you're going to build up a large code base, you don't want to have to port it when the libraries you need stop supporting Python 2.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#94

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

KaiserPro wrote: post #64
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #12

Oh for god's sake. Kill the damn thing already. PHP 4 to 5 was a massive leap compared to Python 2 to 3, but they actually made that leap!

Yes but PHP5 had compelling reasons for upgrading. py3 has a few tweaks and some annoying syntax changes to make things more "pure"

So, counter-intuitively, the bigger leaps are easier to make than the small ones!

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#95

Post by skybrian »

reality_czech wrote: post #86

This is the path that all dynamically typed scripting languages must follow. Over time, change becomes impossible because the lack of typechecking or static analysis tools means that any change might break something in a subtle and hard-to-diagnose way. And so the language grows by accretion. You end up with something like bash or perl, where there are a million ways to do any one thing. Each way was added at a parti…

It is easier. On the other hand, Java doesn't drop any deprecated API's either, so static types may not help as much as you think. Migration still has to happen before dropping something.

It seems to be that automatically upgrading your code, even with "go fix", is staying on the hamster wheel. Using a stable language like Python 2.7 is getting off the hamster wheel, since the "hipster" programmers (including me, sometimes) have moved on.

So in a way, Python 3 helps you if all you care about is stability, since people will make changes to 3 and you can keep using 2.7.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#96

Post by raverbashing »

a1a wrote: post #34
chimeracoder wrote: post #11

This is really disappointing to see - I fear that it will slow adoption of Python 3 even further, when it was just reaching a tipping point[0]. When I first learned Python, I learned Python 3 first because it was newer, and I figured everyone would be using it soon enough. Little did I know that Python 2 would continue to be supported for over ten years after that! Some people make a big deal about figuring out "whic…

On the other hand, if you are comfortable with Python 2, it will do the job, and you know it will be supported for a foreseeable future, why bother learning Python 3? I assume there is a good answer for switching to Python 3, but I honestly don't know (haven't bothered to do any research though). Harshly put: I care about getting my python script working as soon as possible and for a foreseeable future - I couldn't c…

" why bother learning Python 3?"

Unicode

And of course, you'll move from a platform that's shutting down to one that's evolving

Really, it's worth it.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#97

Post by simonh »

crusso wrote: post #45

I just got back into some Python programming after a 2+ year hiatus from the language. I'm stunned that this 2.x vs 3.x debate is still happening and that 99% of all libraries in use * haven't been converted to 3.x. I like the language, but ... damn... If it weren't for the scikit/numpy stuff, I'd stick with Ruby. The Ruby community seems much less fragmented and wants to see the language move forward. It helps a lot…

I'm not that familiar with Ruby, but fix any of its version updates fundamentally break backwards compatibility the way Python did with the Unicode string changes in 3.0?

My organisation has a massive internal platform, with hundreds of applications all developed in Python 2.6. We are in the process of upgrading the base platform to 2.7 but I believe we will never be able to upgrade to 3.x. We have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lines of Python code and it's growing all the time. When we started the project version 3 wasn't really a practical option.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#98

Post by raverbashing »

yason wrote: post #74

How I'm not surprised. Python 3 didn't offer anything that would have been so useful and desirable that people would've jumped on it the moment it was released. In fact, it was actually a bit worse than Python 2 when it was out and those Python 2 users could continue enjoying loads of libraries to go with, and of course they knew how to navigate around Python 2's quirks so why bother. Sadly, this is still what I thin…

Try Python 3.4

I agree with the sentiment, and 3.2 had some rough edges still, 3.3 is better and 3.4 finally gives a virtualenv similar (or even better) to Python 2

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