I wonder how much of the Python 2.x stickiness is due to OSX still having 2.x as the default version. I mean, even Yosemite still defaults to 2.7!
Making Python 3 more attractive
11–20 of 172 posts
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#12OK... so from a _practical_ perspective, can someone tell me why I should move to python 3? None of the arguments presented to switch are strong enough :-/
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#13I don't think any of the things proposed will really drive conversion from Py2 to Py3. I don't think developers need to be excited about it, it just needs to be plausible. Python 3 has some significant momentum now (these talks seem overly negative about it). Developers are waiting for the signal from the enterprise Linux distributions that Py3 is "truly stable", i.e., they're waiting for it to be made the default Py…
Mercurial is a canary - if they see so much pain involved in moving from Py2 to Py3, and little reward, then that's representative of the overall ecosystem.
Having people on older versions of the interpreter is a problem, because it divides the community in half when it comes to knowledge, skillset, capability, etc.. It also confuses outsiders who are looking at the situation, and don't understand which version they should move forward with, because it's not clear which one will by supported by the people they want to hire.
There is a real cost to having the community split - which is why so much effort is put into trying to pull it back together.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#14Nothing in that article matters to me and I use Python every single day. I guess if you know too much about a thing it's easy to lose sight of what "normal" users care about. So here's my list:
1. Speed
2. Language warts (e.g. del, __init__, import *, while: else:)
3. Lack of a modern UI toolkit
4. No native support in Android, iOS, or Browsers worth mentioning.
Right now Python is the perfect prototyping, glue, and modest workload language.
You can make it better for heavy loads by fixing 1. You can make it even more attractive to novice programmers by fixing 2.
But you really have to get to 3 or 4 before it becomes truly attractive and you get a mass adoption.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#15I find it somewhat unfortunate that a LWN subscriber link is being abused like that. I don't think such a link should be shared on a widely accessible platform like Hacker News. I find LWN articles to always be of great quality, and the subscription cost is definitely worth it if you can afford it. Also, "subscriber-only" content becomes publicly available after only a week. There is consequently no reason to share a subscriber link like this on Hacker News. The discussion could have waited a week.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#16People are always going to whine about any change. The Python community should have been more adamant about dropping 2.x updates. Spreading out the pain doesn't make it easier...more code is still being written in 2.x. Ugh, I think I said this 5 years ago. Imagine the tens of millions of new 2.x code that's been written in the last 5 years. Oh well, good luck.
It's challenging. On the one hand, you don't want to break what is working (Python 2.x), so you'd like to support it so that community can continue to be productive. On the other hand, you don't want your braintrust split across two different versions, and you don't want the confusion that comes from having two major versions. For example, the (Epic) Learning Python 5th Edition by Mark Lutz, had to be written for two…
There are a lot of Windows users who are happy with XP too. I remember trying to explain to people 20 years ago why HDTV was better than what they had. Most people were happy with 480 lines of resolution, or thought they were. It's human nature. By being accommodating, you've made the problem harder.
Apple is the only company that says screw legacy. Of course users complain but they just grumble and know to accept it. Apple and their users, as a whole, benefit greatly by "getting all the wood behind one arrow" strategy.
There's lots of grumbling about Swift but I bet we get a very large developer adoption rate within 24 months.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#17I find it somewhat unfortunate that a LWN subscriber link is being abused like that. I don't think such a link should be shared on a widely accessible platform like Hacker News. I find LWN articles to always be of great quality, and the subscription cost is definitely worth it if you can afford it. Also, "subscriber-only" content becomes publicly available after only a week. There is consequently no reason to share a…
mm... they were shared by Guido himself on Twitter, so I am wondering how "private" those links are.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#18Nothing in that article matters to me and I use Python every single day. I guess if you know too much about a thing it's easy to lose sight of what "normal" users care about. So here's my list: 1. Speed 2. Language warts (e.g. del, __init__, import *, while: else:) 3. Lack of a modern UI toolkit 4. No native support in Android, iOS, or Browsers worth mentioning. Right now Python is the perfect prototyping, glue, and…
PyQt I think satisfies "3"? Though it's not builtin.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#19Nothing in that article matters to me and I use Python every single day. I guess if you know too much about a thing it's easy to lose sight of what "normal" users care about. So here's my list: 1. Speed 2. Language warts (e.g. del, __init__, import *, while: else:) 3. Lack of a modern UI toolkit 4. No native support in Android, iOS, or Browsers worth mentioning. Right now Python is the perfect prototyping, glue, and…
I always found it weird that python functions quite happily tell you that you're missing a colon, but can't 'just run' without it.
Excluding one-liner syntax, why does Python actually need a colon to define a function, given it's goal of being free of unnecessary syntactic elements? I'm only an intermediate pythonista, but I'd be interested to know if there was a particular point to the colon.
Re: Making Python 3 more attractive
#20NumPy/SciPy have been the blessing and the curse of Python.