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Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

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Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#71

Post by pmontra »

coldtea wrote: post #62
gtaylor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be more and more of a burden for the developers to maintain compatibility with a 7-year old version of Python. I think this is smart and will help them focus on the road forward. Django 1.11 is an LTS release, so legacy stuff can stick with it and be just fine.

> It's going to be more and more of a burden for the developers to maintain compatibility with a 7-year old version of Python. That's the version of Python that most of their users actually use -- with no major plans of mass updating.

But the Python developers will abandon v2 sooner or later, so IMHO it's wise to start following the bilingual development guidelines https://wiki.python.org/moin/PortingToPy3k/BilingualQuickRef and eventually upgrade to v3.

What are the alternatives? Forking the language or switching to another language look to have a higher cost.

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#72

Post by daenney »

stuaxo wrote: post #38
Galanwe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, I have the exact opposite view on Django. I hate their API and overall architecture, which I find to be the result of glueing features on top of features for many years. The internal code also is just like that: looks like every single method is riddled with out-of-band conditionals, which is the result of a community that prefers to hack things to work, instead of rethinking/refactoring.

Last time I looked a lot of the insides were terrible. A project I was really impressed with the internals of is Celery (was expecting the worst having seen Django).

When was the last time you looked?

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#73

Post by [deleted] »

gtaylor wrote: post #67
vegabook wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that personally I see the benefit of Systemd every time I boot my linux computer. It just works, fast, and clean. I don't partake in the philosophical arguments. I just want it to work. Py3 by contrast, simply throws cruft curveballs at me. No tangible benefit. This is not a systemd-style issue. And yes Python will likely continue massively to be used in the sciences, 3 bears like me notwithstanding, so it wou…

> core base of users and please could they focus on them instead of the web people who are much more fickle and moving already. Ahhh, I see what's going on now. You may be vastly underestimating the size of variety of the Python userbase. This is one of the absolute most popular languages on the planet. Your science subset is but one of many. And it's not even the biggest if we're talking sheer user counts. Python mu…

[deleted]

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#74

Post by Ralfp »

stuaxo wrote: post #38
Galanwe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, I have the exact opposite view on Django. I hate their API and overall architecture, which I find to be the result of glueing features on top of features for many years. The internal code also is just like that: looks like every single method is riddled with out-of-band conditionals, which is the result of a community that prefers to hack things to work, instead of rethinking/refactoring.

Last time I looked a lot of the insides were terrible. A project I was really impressed with the internals of is Celery (was expecting the worst having seen Django).

> Last time I looked a lot of the insides were terrible.

But is it really? Speaking from personal experience it is easy to compare project with large featureset (and one with heritage) to one with scope on doing single thing and come with conclusion that smaller, focused codebase is more consistent and better implemented. At the end of day what matters is if those terriblenesses actually bite back:

- is this code changed frequently? Does it need to be changed frequently? - is it written in a way that that makes fixes and improvement unbearably costful? - is it written in way that allows it to be put apart? How costful are those individual parts to improve?

Django is large codebase that is worked on by different people and when time permits this, which means different parts differ in their age, practices, and ultimately, quiality. This eventually results in codebase that may give appearance of being messy.

Joel Spolsky explains this nicely in his article about old and large codebases appearing as hairy and messy to developers:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

Especially the part that follows below quote is valuable wisdom to keep in mind:

> When programmers say that their code is a holy mess (as they always do), there are three kinds of things that are wrong with it.

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#75

Post by nodamage »

I have a Python 2.7 project that has been running smoothly for many years now and I'm having trouble finding a reason to upgrade to Python 3. The project uses the unicode type to represent all strings, and encodes/decodes as necessary (usually to UTF-8) when doing I/O. I haven't really had any of the Unicode handling problems that people seem to complain about in Python 2.

Can someone explain what benefit I would actually gain from upgrading to Python 3 if I'm already "handling Unicode properly" in Python 2? So far it still seems rather minimal at the moment, and the risk of breaking something during the upgrade process (either in my own code or in one of my dependencies) doesn't seem like it's worth the effort.

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#77

Post by yy77 »

nodamage wrote: post #75

I have a Python 2.7 project that has been running smoothly for many years now and I'm having trouble finding a reason to upgrade to Python 3. The project uses the unicode type to represent all strings, and encodes/decodes as necessary (usually to UTF-8) when doing I/O. I haven't really had any of the Unicode handling problems that people seem to complain about in Python 2. Can someone explain what benefit I would act…

If everything fine with Python 2 on the current project, why bother to upgrade Django 2.0 which will break the compatibility?

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#78

Post by nodamage »

yy77 wrote: post #77
nodamage wrote: post #75

I have a Python 2.7 project that has been running smoothly for many years now and I'm having trouble finding a reason to upgrade to Python 3. The project uses the unicode type to represent all strings, and encodes/decodes as necessary (usually to UTF-8) when doing I/O. I haven't really had any of the Unicode handling problems that people seem to complain about in Python 2. Can someone explain what benefit I would act…

If everything fine with Python 2 on the current project, why bother to upgrade Django 2.0 which will break the compatibility?

Right, that's more or less my question. (I'm not actually using Django though.)

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#79

Post by scrollaway »

coldtea wrote: post #57
scrollaway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we got to Python 3 through progressive deprecation and evolution via python 2.8 and 2.9, we wouldn't be where we are now. You mean exactly like Django's progressive deprecation and evolution that you're complaining about in your parent post?

No, he means language level progressive deprecation and evolution, as opposed to an abrupt jump to a changed 3 from 2.

The Django project has added Python 3 compatibility in Django 1.5 as experimental. It remained experimental in 1.6. It became supported in 1.7. They announced around that time that Django 2.0 would only support Python 3.

Then, they released a first 3.x compatible LTS with Django 1.8. Then they released 1.9, compatible with 3.4 and 3.5.

They then release 1.10. And they are releasing 1.11 soon as an LTS, which they previously announced would be the last in the 1.x branch and the last to support Python 2. It will be supported for AT LEAST THREE YEARS after its released.

Good lord. If the deprecation and evolution gets any more progressive, it'll compete with darwinism. And yet, alanfranzoni complains about it. And YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT IT elsewhere in the thread, saying they're "screwing their userbase" and "leaving their users in the dust".

Don't you think you're being a little fricking entitled? This is an open source project and they're doing quite literally everything right.

Re: Removing Python 2.x support from Django for version 2.0

#80

Post by Acalyptol »

nodamage wrote: post #75

I have a Python 2.7 project that has been running smoothly for many years now and I'm having trouble finding a reason to upgrade to Python 3. The project uses the unicode type to represent all strings, and encodes/decodes as necessary (usually to UTF-8) when doing I/O. I haven't really had any of the Unicode handling problems that people seem to complain about in Python 2. Can someone explain what benefit I would act…

It has always seemed to me that Python 3 was mainly a fix on the philosophy of handling strings, but that it didn't offered a clear practical advantage for programmers already handling strings with care. I don't think there is a practical reason to upgrade to Python 3 in terms of language design. The reason will be in term of survival as the community seems to be willing to follow the Python 3 movement and official support for Python 2 ends in 2020.
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