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Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

hg.python.org

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Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#11

Post by chimeracoder »

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 "which" Python to learn - that's not really much of an issue, because Python 3 isn't so different from Python 2 that it's hard to pick up the other very quickly (especially given how much has been backported to 2.7). But it's unfortunate to see people continuing to write new code in Python 2.

[0] http://python3wos.appspot.com/

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#13

Post by jlebrech »

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…

Isn't this HACKER news, just hack something popular in python 3. all we need it anything written from scratch to be written in python 3.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#14

Post by jabagonuts »

oleganza wrote: post #4
borplk wrote: post #2

Damn. I hope my grandchildren see the day when Python 3 is commonplace.

Guido's or yours opinions are irrelevant. If people have a lot of code for Python 2.7 and have little incentive to migrate to Python 3, then they'll stick with Python 2.7.

It's just prolonging the inevitable. Discontinuing support for python 2.7 may give people the spark they need to finally suck it up and migrate their code. But hey, if it's supported another 5 years, why bother.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#16

Post by rm445 »

shadowmint wrote: post #9
dtech wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same logic that got us stuck with IE6 and Windows XP for over 13 years (and we'll probably be stuck with it for a few more, altough IE6 has been dying now for a little while and Windows XP is being migrated off from)

See, when they invented new web browsers, the old websites still worked on them ! ...and therein lies the difference.

Er, not all of them, that's why the old browsers were still used.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#17

Post by shadowmint »

To be fair, what was the reasonable alternative?

Cede control of python 2.x to vendors who continue to demand support and bug fixes?

That would be a disaster; it'd be a moment away from new features and a 2.8 'cant believe its not python'.

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#18

Post by rguldener »

huxley wrote: post #7
borplk wrote: post #2

Damn. I hope my grandchildren see the day when Python 3 is commonplace.

Since it's only bug & security fixes for Python 2.7.x from this point on, the momentum to python 3.x will pick up considerably. Python 3 compatibility far outnumbers incompatible packages now: http://python3wos.appspot.com

A bit off topic, but what exactly makes boto so hard to port to Python 3? Whenever I look at this page I am puzzled by it still not supporting Python 3

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#19

Post by trentlott »

oleganza wrote: post #4
borplk wrote: post #2

Damn. I hope my grandchildren see the day when Python 3 is commonplace.

Guido's or yours opinions are irrelevant. If people have a lot of code for Python 2.7 and have little incentive to migrate to Python 3, then they'll stick with Python 2.7.

I've used 2.* for about 10 years, quite happily.

If I switch to anything, I'll probably switch to Go.

(I originally typed 2.7, which is nonsense.)

Re: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

#20

Post by SEMW »

shadowmint wrote: post #9
dtech wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same logic that got us stuck with IE6 and Windows XP for over 13 years (and we'll probably be stuck with it for a few more, altough IE6 has been dying now for a little while and Windows XP is being migrated off from)

See, when they invented new web browsers, the old websites still worked on them ! ...and therein lies the difference.

> See, when they invented new web browsers, the old websites still worked on them!

Yeah. But only because they rendered the old websites in various quirks modes[1] that emulated the rendering engines of the old web browsers.

Thankfully, web browser developers did not share the analagous mindset to the people saying 'lets stick with python2-compatible semantics forever', or we'd still be writing sites that had to be backwards-compatible with IE6, instead of having the option to specify a modern doctype and use IE6-incompatible markup (the analogy to using a python3 shebang line and writing python2-incompatible code).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirks_mode

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