[Numpy-discussion] question about future support for python-3

Darren Dale dsdale24 at gmail.com
Tue Sep 8 20:37:38 EDT 2009


Hi David,

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:08 PM, David Cournapeau<cournape at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:21 AM, Darren Dale<dsdale24 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm not a core numpy developer and don't want to step on anybody's
>> toes here. But I was wondering if anyone had considered approaching
>> the Python Software Foundation about support to help get numpy working
>> with python-3?
>
> I already gave my own opinion on py3k, which can be summarized as:
>  - it is a huge effort, and no core numpy/scipy developer has
> expressed the urge to transition to py3k, since py3k does not bring
> much for scientific computing.
>  - very few packages with a significant portion of C have been ported
> to my knowledge, hence very little experience on how to do it. AFAIK,
> only small packages have been ported. Even big, pure python projects
> have not been ported. The only big C project to have been ported is
> python itself, and it broke compatibility and used a different source
> tree than python 2.
>  - it remains to be seen whether we can do the py3k support in the
> same source tree as the one use for python >= 2.4. Having two source
> trees would make the effort even much bigger, well over the current
> developers capacity IMHO.
>
> The only area where I could see the PSF helping is the point 2: more
> documentation, more stories about 2->3 transition.

I'm surprised to hear you say that. I would think additional developer
and/or financial resources would be useful, for all of the reasons you
listed.

Darren



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