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About Python 3

alexgaynor.net

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11–20 of 358 posts

Re: About Python 3

#11

Post by benburton »

GuiA wrote: post #7

Python 3 came from a good place, and it definitely fixes many problems that sorely needed fixing, but it was doomed to failure from the start (and many developers said that in 2008 already). For all intents and purposes, Python 3 is pretty much a new, separate programming language. Sure, it's very close to Python 2.x, but you don't have out of the box retro-compatibility so that pretty much kills it right there. Pyth…

> but you don't have out of the box retro-compatibility so that pretty much kills it right there.

I don't know if that's necessarily a foregone conclusion. Scala releases aren't always/usually backwards-compatible, and you'd be hard-pressed to find people still using much older versions.

Re: About Python 3

#13

Post by hnriot »

Python 3 is a huge distraction. It's hard to get people to move away from languages like java while there's a fragmented python world. If only we could just forget py3 the python community would be a better, more newbie friendly place. Every time I hire someone I have to explain why python 2 and why not "the latest"

Re: About Python 3

#14

Post by dorfsmay »

What is really needed is a 3to2.

I have been very impressed with 2to3, the amount of work it does is pretty impressive. But as somebody who tends and prefers to work in python 3 but often needs my scripts to run in python 2, I have no choice but write those in python 2. I can see the same dilemma for somebody who writes an open source library and hope for as much usage as possible.

Re: About Python 3

#15

Post by GuiA »

benburton wrote: post #11
GuiA wrote: post #7

Python 3 came from a good place, and it definitely fixes many problems that sorely needed fixing, but it was doomed to failure from the start (and many developers said that in 2008 already). For all intents and purposes, Python 3 is pretty much a new, separate programming language. Sure, it's very close to Python 2.x, but you don't have out of the box retro-compatibility so that pretty much kills it right there. Pyth…

> but you don't have out of the box retro-compatibility so that pretty much kills it right there. I don't know if that's necessarily a foregone conclusion. Scala releases aren't always/usually backwards-compatible, and you'd be hard-pressed to find people still using much older versions.

I'm not too familiar with Scala; but isn't its life at a different stage than Python's?

Re: About Python 3

#16

Post by antrod »

There is no meaningful performance increase to go to a backwards incompatible version? Three letters: DOA. if not performance then at least we'd need some crazy new feature like good multi threading or perhaps running on a new relevant platform (say ios or android). Otherwise we will be 2.X forever.

Re: About Python 3

#17

Post by mtrn »

GuiA wrote: post #7

Python 3 came from a good place, and it definitely fixes many problems that sorely needed fixing, but it was doomed to failure from the start (and many developers said that in 2008 already). For all intents and purposes, Python 3 is pretty much a new, separate programming language. Sure, it's very close to Python 2.x, but you don't have out of the box retro-compatibility so that pretty much kills it right there. Pyth…

> If we didn't want to kid ourselves, we'd kill Python 3 ...

Using Python both personally and professionally, I do not think it is necessary. I already came across a few 3.X features, that I miss in 2.X and I write most 2.X code "in preparation" for the jump. But that's it, it is a jump, still.

The most interesting part of the post is the feedback matter, which seems to be accidental, but isn't since an open source language is shaped by the people - something you can forget, when you are not a contributor (which most of the people might not be).

Re: About Python 3

#18

Post by hansjorg »

My last few Python projects have started out as Python 3, but ended up as 2 due to missing library support.

Would it be at all feasible to enable Python 3 to import Python 2 code? I imagine this could be done without making Python 3 fully backwards compatible, but I might be wrong.

Re: About Python 3

#19

Post by steveklabnik »

GuiA wrote: post #7

Python 3 came from a good place, and it definitely fixes many problems that sorely needed fixing, but it was doomed to failure from the start (and many developers said that in 2008 already). For all intents and purposes, Python 3 is pretty much a new, separate programming language. Sure, it's very close to Python 2.x, but you don't have out of the box retro-compatibility so that pretty much kills it right there. Pyth…

This sounds remarkably like Perl 5/6.

Re: About Python 3

#20

Post by toyg »

dorfsmay wrote: post #14

What is really needed is a 3to2. I have been very impressed with 2to3, the amount of work it does is pretty impressive. But as somebody who tends and prefers to work in python 3 but often needs my scripts to run in python 2, I have no choice but write those in python 2. I can see the same dilemma for somebody who writes an open source library and hope for as much usage as possible.

No, I actually agree with a commenter on the page: what you need is a small compatibility layer to run 2.x code on 3.x, which can be slow and emit loads of warnings, and then stop making 2.x available AT ALL.

What 3to2 and six really do is keeping the 2.x runtime alive, and as long as the runtime sticks around (and is patched, and features are backported etc etc etc), people will keep using it.

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