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Sunsetting Python 2

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Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#91

Post by spurdoman77 »

jedberg wrote: post #62

In 2015, there was no way I could have moved to Python 3. There were too many libraries I depended on that hadn't ported yet. In 2019, I feel pretty confident about using Python 3, having used it exclusively for about 18 months now. For my personal use case at least, this timeline worked out well for me. Hopefully it works out for most everyone. I can't imagine they made this decision without at least some data backi…

Personal use can be quite different to business use cases. For many companies the conversion can be quite horrific, they might be quite happy to pay for support for older versions.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#92

Post by brnt »

jedberg wrote: post #69
brnt wrote: post #64

Every now and then a language like no other pops up: it's use is unusual and unusually long. Various biblical languages come to mind: Latin, Church Slavonic, Hebrew at one point. These languages are feature complete, and the fact that they didn't change was their main appeal. I've always thought Python 2 might be headed for the languages. Which is fine, it's great to have a programming equivalent of Latin.

Latin is getting new words all the time. The Vatican is the official maintainer. Sometimes it gets grammar tweaks too. Hebrew was completely replaced with modern Hebrew and gets new changes constantly.

I guess I didn't go deep enough with the analogy.

Python 2 sees new code all the time too. It's not dead! That's the whole point, it can simultaneously not see any new changes but still be used by those who value the absence of change.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#93

Post by szatkus »

brnt wrote: post #64

Every now and then a language like no other pops up: it's use is unusual and unusually long. Various biblical languages come to mind: Latin, Church Slavonic, Hebrew at one point. These languages are feature complete, and the fact that they didn't change was their main appeal. I've always thought Python 2 might be headed for the languages. Which is fine, it's great to have a programming equivalent of Latin.

Funnily enough, Latin became relatievely stable because people stopped using it outside the Church. After the fall of the Rome it quickly transformed into French, Spanish, Italian etc.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#94

Post by shakna »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #63
marsokod wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the benefit of FOSS is that if the group developing a product does not support it anymore, you are free to fork it and support it yourself. And I am sure we will see a fair share of people doing that. What I am not sure is of anyone doing so will have the shoulders to actually support it. Python 2.7 was released 1 decade ago. That's quite a long transition time.

Tongue in cheek comment; C was released 47 years ago and is still supported... but then again, that shows a very different philosophy between system languages and scripting languages.

Very few people write pre-ANSI C code today though, and the language itself was last updated in 2011.

I'm sure people wouldn't gladly accept C code written for a 47-year-old compiler today.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#95

Post by reitzensteinm »

jedberg wrote: post #62

In 2015, there was no way I could have moved to Python 3. There were too many libraries I depended on that hadn't ported yet. In 2019, I feel pretty confident about using Python 3, having used it exclusively for about 18 months now. For my personal use case at least, this timeline worked out well for me. Hopefully it works out for most everyone. I can't imagine they made this decision without at least some data backi…

Based on your timeline, a four year gap from "not yet ready to migrate" to "we won't fix security vulnerabilities" is very short.

Python is an open source project I've used and contributed nothing to, so I don't have the right to be a back seat driver. Were it a commercial project and I was a customer, I would be quite upset.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#96

Post by mihaifm »

choppaface wrote: post #80

"What will happen if I do not upgrade by January 1st, 2020?" "You will lose chances to use good tools because they will only run on Python 3, you will slow down people who depend on you and work with you." The tone in this document is excessive and over-the-top. If the author spent half the document demonstrating (with examples) why Python3 is so great, it might actually be useful and get people upgrading like right…

Totally agree, there's some degree of arrogance, especially in that section of the article. Maybe it's unintended, developers are not always good at PR.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#97

Post by jabl »

johnlinvc wrote: post #79

The battle has not over yet. RHEL 8 has Python 2.7 in their Application Streams. So looks like Red Hat will provide security updates until Jun 2024 https://access.redhat.com/node/4079021

There was some mention somewhere that RH will support the python 2.7 appstream for RHEL 8 as long as RHEL 7.x is supported. Which coincidentally is June 2024, so, yeah.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#98

Post by kbumsik »

coldtea wrote: post #3

> If people find catastrophic security problems in Python 2, or in software written in Python 2, then volunteers will not help you. If you need help with Python 2 software, then volunteers will not help you. Well, isn't it the benefit of FOSS, that volunteers can, and in the case of such a critical piece, so much used as Python 2, in all probability will, step up. Doesn't have to be the same people as the core team i…

I think the volunteers here refers the Python core developers and committers. In contrast to cooperation-backed popular modern languages like JS, Python team has few full-time devs maintaining Python. [1] Most of them literally are volunteers.

[1] https://discuss.python.org/t/official-list-of-core-developer...

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#99

Post by PeterisP »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #95
jedberg wrote: post #62

In 2015, there was no way I could have moved to Python 3. There were too many libraries I depended on that hadn't ported yet. In 2019, I feel pretty confident about using Python 3, having used it exclusively for about 18 months now. For my personal use case at least, this timeline worked out well for me. Hopefully it works out for most everyone. I can't imagine they made this decision without at least some data backi…

Based on your timeline, a four year gap from "not yet ready to migrate" to "we won't fix security vulnerabilities" is very short. Python is an open source project I've used and contributed nothing to, so I don't have the right to be a back seat driver. Were it a commercial project and I was a customer, I would be quite upset.

The thing is, a four year gap is very large from the perspective of "should we drop everything else and prioritize porting our library to python3 right now".

If the deadline wasn't 2020 but 2024, then you wouldn't get more time, simply we'd be at "not yet ready to migrate" state right now, as major libraries would not have switched yet.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#100

Post by jedberg »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #91
jedberg wrote: post #62

In 2015, there was no way I could have moved to Python 3. There were too many libraries I depended on that hadn't ported yet. In 2019, I feel pretty confident about using Python 3, having used it exclusively for about 18 months now. For my personal use case at least, this timeline worked out well for me. Hopefully it works out for most everyone. I can't imagine they made this decision without at least some data backi…

Personal use can be quite different to business use cases. For many companies the conversion can be quite horrific, they might be quite happy to pay for support for older versions.

I meant my personal business use case.
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