[Python-3000] Cross-compatibility with 2.6 and 3.0

[Giovanni Bajo]

On 09/03/2007 0.18, Talin wrote:

> Guido's Py3K presentation of February 14th (available on Google Video at 
> this URL: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1189446823303316785) 
> contains the following statement:
> 
> "It is unlikely that you will be able to write both code that is both 
> valid Python 2.6 source code and valid Python 3.0 source code".
> 
> This seems like a big problem to me: From a systems management approach, 
> its much easier to migrate a system if you can take a gradualist 
> approach rather than being forced to maintain two versions of the code 
> in parallel. [...]

This was already discussed ad libitum: the point is that you will be able to 
write and maintain a valid Python 2.6 source code which can be automatically 
converted to valid Python 3.0 source code with the 2to3 refactoring tool. This 
is meant to be a good enough compromise.

[ Of course, not *every* Python 2.6 valid program can be converted with 2to3, 
but the goal is making people able to "adjust" their 2.6 source code up to the 
  point that it works with 2to3 ]
-- 
Giovanni Bajo