Python 3.0: What's The Point?
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Python 3.0: What's The Point?
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Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#2Sounds a bit like all the VB Classic guys moaning about VB.NET. I joined in a bit myself (mind .NET 1.0 was pretty bad) but now quite happily work in C#, VB.NET and VB6 - whatever makes the customer happy.
Many thousands of VB programmers (hundreds of thousands?) bridged the gap and a great many work in both versions just like me. It just is not a problem.
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#3According to the Zen of Python (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/), and the whole idea upon which python is created:
"There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."
That right there sums up the whole point of Python 3, necessary evil (reverse incompatibility) for future good.
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#4Sounds a bit like all the VB Classic guys moaning about VB.NET. I joined in a bit myself (mind .NET 1.0 was pretty bad) but now quite happily work in C#, VB.NET and VB6 - whatever makes the customer happy. Many thousands of VB programmers (hundreds of thousands?) bridged the gap and a great many work in both versions just like me. It just is not a problem.
I think, though, a number of programmers did leave Visual Basic for other things over those changes. Is that not correct?
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#5Sounds a bit like all the VB Classic guys moaning about VB.NET. I joined in a bit myself (mind .NET 1.0 was pretty bad) but now quite happily work in C#, VB.NET and VB6 - whatever makes the customer happy. Many thousands of VB programmers (hundreds of thousands?) bridged the gap and a great many work in both versions just like me. It just is not a problem.
Nope, thousands at best.
Most abandoned Microsoft. Or better said, Microsoft abandoned them. Choosing to release an incompatible set of new languages with no upgrade path was hint enough that Microsoft had purely it's own interests at heart and not that of the lowly VB and ASP developers who made their OS and web server successful. Most took the hint and are now happily supporting Java, Ruby, PHP, Python and Perl web apps (with a side-business supporting VB6 legacy apps and ASP - apparently still alive and kicking after all these years) -in short, anything non-proprietary.
"Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me." For Microsoft, no second chance.
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#6Anyone have any insight on the comment about Python 3 being 10% slower?
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#7Anyone have any insight on the comment about Python 3 being 10% slower?
It's because they left out a lot of the old optimization hacks when they reworked the interpreter. They'll either be reinserted or better solutions will be found now that the language is stable.
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#8UNICODE support would be reason enough to answer "what's the point".
Also, some operations in Python 3, particularly those that are relevant to me as a web application developer, are as fast as 2.6 and in fact significantly faster than 2.5.x.
If for no other reason than the much better support for Unicode - an advantage that will pay off dividends across all products built on 3 in the future - that would be reason enough.
As it is when you look at third party packages that claim to support Unicode you'll frequently find all sorts of cruft that doesn't play well with other packages.
With respect to Unicode and Python, what was once less than intuitive, is now easy. It just works.
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#9Python3 won't be standard until it's adopted as the main python of several widespread linux distros and available in a clean, batteries included way for OSX and all 36 flavours of windows.
Bitching about py3k is basically whining about being forced to learn new things.
The one question I have is are people going to start using different filename conventions?
I could see temporarily associating .py3 with a /usr/local/bin/py3k for testing purposes and porting 2.6 to 3, but I really hope it doesn't become a widespread practice.
Re: Python 3.0: What's The Point?
#10Sounds a bit like all the VB Classic guys moaning about VB.NET. I joined in a bit myself (mind .NET 1.0 was pretty bad) but now quite happily work in C#, VB.NET and VB6 - whatever makes the customer happy. Many thousands of VB programmers (hundreds of thousands?) bridged the gap and a great many work in both versions just like me. It just is not a problem.
Isn't VB.NET lots faster than VB by virtue of targeting a fully blown JITing VM? That's a damn good "yes, but".