[Numpy-discussion] PEP 574 - zero-copy pickling with out of band data

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 09:42:08AM +0200, Andrea Gavana wrote:
> I’m happy if you feel better after your tirade.

Not really. I worry a lot that many users are going to be surprised when
Python 2 stops being supported, which is in a couple of years. I wrote
this tirade not to make me feel better, but to try to underlie that the
switch is happening, and more and more of these exciting new things would
pop up in Python 3. Soon, new releases of projects like numpy and
scikit-learn won't support Python 2 anymore, which means that they will
be getting exciting features too that don't benefit Python 2 users.

It is a pity that some people find themselves left behind, because Python
3 is more and more exciting, with cool asynchronous features, more robust
multiprocessing, better pickling, and many other great features.

I found that, given a good test suite, porting from 2 to 3 wasn't very
hard. The 2 key ingredients were a good test suite, and not hand-written
C binding (Cython makes supporting both 2 and 3 really easy).

My goal is not to shame, or create uneasy discussions, but more to
encourage people to upgrade, at least for their core dependencies. Maybe
I am not conveying the right message, or using the right tone. In which
case, my apologies. I am genuinely excited about the Python3 future.

Best,

Gaël