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Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

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Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#41

Post by altano »

I just recently started learning Python for the first time, and at some point I switched from playing with 2.7 to 3.x, and my uninformed opinion is that I'm shocked at how many seemingly completely unnecessary breaking changes there are.

Did the parameter names to open()d really need to change? Why did I have to change from io.open() to open() for a stream? Did str.lowercase really need to become string.ascii_lowercase? The number of errors in my toy little program upon upgrading really surprised me.

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#42

Post by scrollaway »

jgalt212 wrote: post #13

Most everything good from Python 3 has been back-ported to 2.7. Except for built in parameterized tests in unittest. Python 3 has the subTest context manager (which looks great) https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html#distinguishi... In 2.7 you must use pytest, ddt, nose-paramemterized or dynamically add test methods to a TestCase class at runtime.

Most everything good? Like high quality unicode support and async def?

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#43

Post by asdfologist »

People here keep bemoaning the golang designers' decision to not upgrade their language with things like generics, but suddenly their panties get twisted in a bunch when the Python community actually decides to fix problems in their language.

Get off your high horse and upgrade your code. So many people did it before you, and so can you.

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#44

Post by shadowmint »

fallenshell wrote: post #22

Man, the amount of people and support going for Python 2.7 is mind boggling. Coming from another language, I find the slow adoption of Python 3 insane. Don't you want Python as a language to advance? Python should've abandoned and deprecated 2 ages ago. I still see new tutorials teaching 2. What the hell.

A lot of people really dont care about the future of python, they just want to write code.

...and honestly, whats wrong with that?

really, what difference does it make if people use old python versions?

Other than the core python team, which get to be embarrased that many people have zero interest in the work theyre doing?

Does it affect you? nope. Does it break the ecosystem? nope. Does it make library authors suffer? nope (dont support it if you dont want to).

Come on. Live and let be.

If you love python3, use it. Dont winge pointlessly (not you personally; all the hostile frothing at the mouth python3 advocates, especially on reddit)

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#45

Post by shadowmint »

asdfologist wrote: post #43

People here keep bemoaning the golang designers' decision to not upgrade their language with things like generics, but suddenly their panties get twisted in a bunch when the Python community actually decides to fix problems in their language. Get off your high horse and upgrade your code. So many people did it before you, and so can you.

suddenly? you mean 7 years ago?

This is an old pointless fight. :/

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#46

Post by BigJono »

asdfologist wrote: post #43

People here keep bemoaning the golang designers' decision to not upgrade their language with things like generics, but suddenly their panties get twisted in a bunch when the Python community actually decides to fix problems in their language. Get off your high horse and upgrade your code. So many people did it before you, and so can you.

Meanwhile in Javascript land, if your code is a year old you're already running out of prospective hires that are familiar enough with the language to maintain it haha.

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#47

Post by cookiecaper »

bionsuba wrote: post #38
StavrosK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This again indeed, because Python 2.7 is going away. Python 3 is the future, and we've been resting on our "eh, python 2.7 is convenient enough" mindset for too long. We should just bite the bullet and move to 3, which isn't even that bad of a migration. Also, "supporting legacy code for money" is already everyone's job, unless you're implying that there are as many Python programmers as there are COBOL ones.

That's incredibly naïve. Python 2 will be around and have new software written with it for at least a decade to come. Keep saying "Python 3 is the future", that will surely make companies invest in switching. Meanwhile ford still uses 40 year old IBM mainframes with COBOL, and will continue to do so until they are physically unable.

As others posters have commented, Python 2 will survive in the sense that there will always be some code running on it (and there will be a niche market for dark artists who can massage it). Python 2 will not survive in the sense that no one will be writing new code for it. Python 3 is already commonly used for new projects and it's scheduled to get several big boosts in that direction as Ubuntu and Fedora switch to it as the default Python.

The old meme that it's unsafe to use Py3 is not true anymore. Practically all of the big libraries work fine on Python 3 now. Py3 code is going to be dominant in new projects in short order if it isn't already, and it's plausible that new Py2 projects will be virtually extinct by 2020.

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#48

Post by netheril96 »

asdfologist wrote: post #43

People here keep bemoaning the golang designers' decision to not upgrade their language with things like generics, but suddenly their panties get twisted in a bunch when the Python community actually decides to fix problems in their language. Get off your high horse and upgrade your code. So many people did it before you, and so can you.

If Go upgrades itself with support with generics but break backwards compatibility in a horrible way and the breaks cannot be caught at compile time, people will be complaining and resisting upgrade just the same.

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#49

Post by asdfologist »

shadowmint wrote: post #44
fallenshell wrote: post #22

Man, the amount of people and support going for Python 2.7 is mind boggling. Coming from another language, I find the slow adoption of Python 3 insane. Don't you want Python as a language to advance? Python should've abandoned and deprecated 2 ages ago. I still see new tutorials teaching 2. What the hell.

A lot of people really dont care about the future of python, they just want to write code. ...and honestly, whats wrong with that? really, what difference does it make if people use old python versions? Other than the core python team, which get to be embarrased that many people have zero interest in the work theyre doing? Does it affect you? nope. Does it break the ecosystem? nope. Does it make library authors suffe…

I think you missed the whole point of this thread. People want ongoing official support of Python 2.7, which involves resources that could be used elsewhere. Supporting stuff is not free, you know?

Re: Python 2.7 Retirement Countdown

#50

Post by iconjack »

Well I'm sure this is a naive point of view, but I'm going to put it out there anyway. It seems there are many Python devotees out there who are lukewarm about Python 3, and quite a few who really don't like it at all, hence a slow adoption rate. Right now it seems like the community is fractured along that fault line.

Is it too late? Can we back out of the current incarnation of Python 3 and go down another path instead? In other words, turn the slow adoption rate into a plus, call a do-over and mold the new Python into something more people are happy with.

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