Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey • Hacker News Board

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#31

Post by ambrop7 » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:31 PM UTC

arenaninja wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a Flask mini project I did. I was doing it in Ubuntu (LTS if I'm not mistaken). I picked python3 and ran with it. As I tried to use Python's virtualenv (venv), I went down the rabbit hole of a broken mess that was left in Ubuntu. I just reinstalled Ubuntu this week so I might give it another shot, but every time I try to do something with Python I end up with a broken mess, and that's disheartening

I just use Nix (see [1]), for Python stuff and everything else. I've never tried to use virtualenv and hope I never will.

[1] https://nixos.org/wiki/Python

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#32

Post by Alex3917 » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:33 PM UTC

martinvol wrote: post #24

cjlarose wrote: post #21

Meanwhile, the Python 3 Wall of Superpowers is looking really good. 166/200 major watched projects are Python 3-compatible. https://python3wos.appspot.com

Python 2 was supposed to be dead at least 2 years ago and still 34/200 major watched projects use it.

The google-api-python-client is what bothers me the most. They work on convincing top CS departments to teach CS101 in Python, and as soon as the majority switch it feels like they've kind of abandoned the language. From what I can gather from Github, it looks like there is all of one person working on this part time.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#33

Post by agentultra » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

I write all of my side projects in Python 3.4. I only write 2.7 because I work on Openstack at my day job. I avoid the use of Python 2 in every situation I can.

Python 3 has better modules built-in; the existing modules have been cleaned up; a cleaned up language (no more xrange, lazy map/filter/reduce, explicit byte-stream encoding); an improved language (sub-generators); optional type annotations; configurable allocators (in Cpython).

I just prefer it to Python 2 these days.

edit: And all of the upstream effort into making the language better is going into Python 3.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#34

Post by tesq » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:40 PM UTC

This seems more of an outlet to vent and quantify the frustration of the Python 2 to 3 migration than it is a 2 vs 3 use survey.

I transitioned to 3 over a year ago and haven't looked back. I am happy with how the ecosystem has adapted and the direction Python is taking.

Type annotations, liberal use of and expansion of syntax for generators, language cleanup and additions to the standard library really make it another and better language.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#35

Post by tmalsburg2 » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:42 PM UTC

jostmey wrote: post #5

Stopped using python in my research. Now I stick with Matlab/Julia.

I stopped using Python in my research, too. Now I'm using R which is so terrible as a language that for the first two years I felt insulted every time I wrote code in it. However, I stuck with it and even like it now because it has an amazing ecosystem. (I also got used to expressing things in terms of vector and matrix operations.) Julia is promising but things are still too much in flux for my taste to consider it for serious work. I have no doubts about Julia as a language but I'm not sure if they are going to able to build an ecosystem like R's. They're not always making it easy for R developers to switch. Fortunately, some R veterans like Doug Bates are heavily investing in Julia. I hope others will follow.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#36

Post by hit8run » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:42 PM UTC

App Engine supports Python 2.7. this was a deal breaker for python 3 usage for me.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#37

Post by Svenstaro » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:43 PM UTC

We use Python 3 for our current Flask projects with lots of dependencies without much trouble. Granted, we had to fix two libs for compatibility but it wasn't a big deal. It's pretty smooth sailing for us.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#38

Post by nichochar » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

hit8run wrote: post #36

App Engine supports Python 2.7. this was a deal breaker for python 3 usage for me.

same here. And I don't think google is putting a lot of resources in appengine (python) anymore, so I don't think this is going to change soon.

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#39

Post by arenaninja » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:48 PM UTC

pekk wrote: post #11

arenaninja wrote: post #4

This reminds me of a Flask mini project I did. I was doing it in Ubuntu (LTS if I'm not mistaken). I picked python3 and ran with it. As I tried to use Python's virtualenv (venv), I went down the rabbit hole of a broken mess that was left in Ubuntu. I just reinstalled Ubuntu this week so I might give it another shot, but every time I try to do something with Python I end up with a broken mess, and that's disheartening

I'm also sorry that Ubuntu broke venv, but there were many (edit: at least a few that I remember) attempts to file tickets to get that fixed in Ubuntu, lots of stupid arguments against fixing it

It definitely turned me away from Python yet again for the time being. I'm now rewriting that same project in Laravel. I understand that it's not python's fault, but every time I've tried to use it some package is broken, and the alternative is going back to python2

Re: Python 2.x vs. 3.x use survey

#40

Post by asgard1024 » Wed, Dec 10, 2014, 6:49 PM UTC

cjlarose wrote: post #21

Meanwhile, the Python 3 Wall of Superpowers is looking really good. 166/200 major watched projects are Python 3-compatible. https://python3wos.appspot.com

Funny. I wrote a really small utility program with BeautifulSoup in Python 3. Coworker wanted to host it on AppEngine, but it supported only Python 2 for some reason. So he ported it. I am not sure what they support now, but it seems that the WoS application itself has to be in Python 2. :-)