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Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

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Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#241

Post by mafuy »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #213
Narann wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most popular packages are now compatible with Python 3 I often see this but I think it's a perception from the Internet/web world. I work for CGI, all (I'm not kidding) our softwares (we have many) are 2.7. You will never see them used "on the web/Internet/forum/network" place but the day-to-day job of millions of peoples in the industry is 2.7. And we are a tiny focused industry. So I'm sure there is many other in…

Hello from the embedded world! The web world indeed can rapidly change their entire stack from LAMP to MEAN to Dockerized Q-Basic CGI scripts and load balance their Twitter clone. There's challenges for sure, but pushing updates is simple and quick, and you can always throw more cloud if you run into walls. If your complete platform rewrite fails, just roll the load balancer back over and try again tomorrow. It's a l…

But... would you not use tools that have a guarantee of long term support for such a use case?

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#242

Post by takeda »

compuguy wrote: post #228
dajonker wrote: post #3

This is good: - Python 2 support officially ends somewhere in 2020 - most popular packages are now compatible with Python 3 - Python 3.7 performs about as well as 2.7 with future release expected to be better Although it still took way too long, if you consider Python 3.0 was released about 10 years ago.

Ansible still doesn't support Python 3....

Ansible is an application not a library so it is not a problem. Python allows to install multiple versions at the same time, for example you can have Python 2.7, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6 installed side by side and all will work fine without issues.

So you can have Python 2.7 installed for Ansible and 3.6 for your application.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#243

Post by mixmastamyk »

Narann wrote: post #95
dajonker wrote: post #3

This is good: - Python 2 support officially ends somewhere in 2020 - most popular packages are now compatible with Python 3 - Python 3.7 performs about as well as 2.7 with future release expected to be better Although it still took way too long, if you consider Python 3.0 was released about 10 years ago.

> most popular packages are now compatible with Python 3 I often see this but I think it's a perception from the Internet/web world. I work for CGI, all (I'm not kidding) our softwares (we have many) are 2.7. You will never see them used "on the web/Internet/forum/network" place but the day-to-day job of millions of peoples in the industry is 2.7. And we are a tiny focused industry. So I'm sure there is many other in…

If you're not doing much/any text encoding, guessing graphics/VFX is not, then upgrading is pretty painless these days.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#244

Post by username223 »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #111
ceronman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by double standard? Everyone in the community, including the core developers, acknowledge that the 2 to 3 story was full of mistakes. They have promised not to make it again. And they took some actions to remedy the problems, and that's why Python 3 is finally succeeding. I recommend this presentation by Victor Stinner at FOSDEM 2018 which talks about it: https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/python…

The double standard is that people still stick to Python despite those problems. If we're being honest and all conspiracy aside, imagine the same story for Ruby (a very similar language in terms of capability, features and performance), everyone would be laughing at them and the language would be pulling a Perl right now.

Those three scripting languages actually an interesting comparison.

Perl 5 -> 6 broke all your code in exchange for a whole new language. Some people moved to Perl 6, some to other languages, and a lot stayed with Perl (5), which still runs programs written in Perl 1.

Ruby 1.8 -> 1.9 broke most of your code in exchange for minor cleanups. But Ruby was Rails, so the culture accepted constant rewriting and breakage, and people went along.

Python 2 -> 3 also broke most of your code in exchange for minor cleanups. Users expected some stability, but the language's culture demanded conformity. The result has been a decade-long war in which Python fans try to shame Python users into moving to version 3.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#245

Post by sametmax »

UncleEntity wrote: post #220
sametmax wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much yes. Some Linux distrib where still using 2.6, and not a lot of them had even 3.2 in their packages. Only a few like you and me tried it. I can't recall of any big project or lib ever supporting < 3.3.

Blender was using py3k for quite a while before 3.3. I was doing blender dev work back then and can recall the almost immediate upgrades as soon as the newest python release came out -- kind of painful really since I prefered to use the fedora installed version instead of building from scratch so would often stall my dev work until fedora caught up to blender. They jumped on so early the python devs were saying "WTF…

Given blender is mostly c bindings and a huge code base, it's kinda impressive, and a good example that it's not an impossible task to migrate even a very hard project, let alone the most common ones.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#246

Post by bitL »

Avshalom wrote: post #240
bitL wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is obviously a massive jump from COBOL to Python, and small but annoyingly incompatible step from Python 2 to Python 3. I hope you understand the difference. It's not like Python 3 was the best language ever, it's just a variation (and IMO not that great one to justify breaking backwards compatibility) of the same theme. Ask Perl guys how they liked a similar situation. If I didn't need to use Python, I wouldn'…

You don't have to rewrite it, just like you don't have to rewrite your COBOL or MUMPS or RPG or any of the other all-caps languages. In another 20-30 years Python may very well be added to that list (though less annoyingly capitalized). No one will have to rewrite their Python into whatever the new thing is then either. But not re-writing ProgramX into LanguageX+1 is not LanguageX's authors' problem or CompanyX-no-lo…

If they called Python 3 e.g. Cobra or Boa Constrictor or even Turbo/rapid/mega Python or similar nonsense, nobody would likely complain as it would clearly distinguish itself from existing ecosystem and all the enthusiasts could jump on the wave, boasting how much better it is, that it comes from the original authors of Python and then go through usual Darwinian selection to see if they prevailed. But breaking compatibility in a major way doesn't make a lot of people happy, when the gains are small, as with v3.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#247

Post by collinmanderson »

scolson wrote: post #210
Paul_S wrote: post #172

The Internet may switch to 3 but industry will stay on 2.7 for the next decade and no EoL will change that. There is absolutely nothing that can change that because there is zero benefit to rewriting a decade's worth of code and no manager will authorise that. So don't bin those 2.7 books just yet if you want a job at a big co.

... Said the COBOL developers. To some degree, you may be correct, that there will be companies that refuse to upgrade for many years. By and large, I think most people will start to switch: * Small orgs will begin to see costs of maintaining legacy code skyrocket as it becomes harder and harder to get 2.7 interpreter support for newer kernels. Those that aren't already transitioning now will eventually bite the bull…

...and then there's Mega Large orgs, like Google, who are used to maintaining their own software.

I am super curious what Google will do. The thing to watch is whether Chrome/Chromium (and therefore Node.js) can ever be built without using Python 2.7.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#248

Post by takeda »

hyperpallium wrote: post #198
ceronman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by double standard? Everyone in the community, including the core developers, acknowledge that the 2 to 3 story was full of mistakes. They have promised not to make it again. And they took some actions to remedy the problems, and that's why Python 3 is finally succeeding. I recommend this presentation by Victor Stinner at FOSDEM 2018 which talks about it: https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/python…

Could someone provide a summary of the kinds of mistakes/remedies?

Did not watch the presentation but IMO the primary mistake was not declaring EOL for 2.x sooner. Other languages had similarly breaking changes and they simply gave short time before legacy version was declared EOL and developers ported their applications to the new version.

In Python it took 10 years, and even now you can't get companies to migrate, because why make developers do the work when application still can be used. Many places will probably start the migration in 2020, which shows that giving 10 years head start was a mistake and all it did was create FUD and division in the community.

The Python 3 immediately picked up for new projects after announcement that 2.7 will no longer have new feature and only bugfixes in 2015. Industry will wait for the last moment when all support for 2.7 will be ceased in 2020.

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#249

Post by collinmanderson »

maxerickson wrote: post #134
lloeki wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although it still took way too long, if you consider Python 3.0 was released about 10 years ago Somehow, it was the plan[0]. I feel like I wrote about that extensively already way too many times[1]. [0]: (2016) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11502844 [1]: (2012) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4569440

I think one of the biggest mistakes is that 3.0 didn't have "PREVIEW RELEASE" right in the name. People started counting the day it was released, meanwhile the developers didn't have any expectation that (many) people would use it in production.

Right, the way I look at it:

2008-2012 3.x itself being usable.

2012-2016 Libraries getting 3.x support.

2016-2020 Applications geting 3.x support (trac, samba, ansible, etc)

Re: Python 2 will be replaced with Python 3 in the next RHEL major release

#250

Post by joshuamorton »

Something1234 wrote: post #226
bastawhiz wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While nothing is really exciting in the 3.x branch. Sorry, have you looked at Python 3 lately? I don't think I can sum up all of the amazing work that's been done in one post (async? Cleaned up stdlib? Better errors? Not having an aneurysm from text encoding issues unraveling your whole project? New splat syntax?). I would really encourage you to check out what's happened in the last ten years. I think you'll find m…

splat == list unpacking https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2322355/proper-name-for-...

He's likely referring to the extended unpacking changes, stuff like

    merged = {**base, **changes}
Which is the equivalent of what previously was

    merged = {k:v for k, v in base.items()}
    merged.update(changes)
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