[Python-3000] [Python-ideas] Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

[Ralf W. Grosse-Kunstleve]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Some, 
like 
the 
"field 
heavyweight" 
quoted 
by 
the 
OP, 
are 
refreshingly
> pragmatic 
about 
it.  
They're 
quite 
happy 
to 
use 
a 
language 
that 
is
> pretty 
crappy 
for 
most 
purposes 
today 
considered 
practical 
because 
it
> does 
a 
great 
job 
of 
continuing 
to 
run 
the 
programs 
written 
to 
address
> the 
"practical 
purposes" 
of 
three 
decades 
ago 
(if 
I 
interpret 
the 
"76"
> in 
"SHELX-76" 
correctly).

He is one of the brightest people you'll find on this planet. His set
of programs still is a de-facto standard, used to solve the vast majority
of (small molecule) crystal structures. To know what that means,
consider that without his work, you wouldn't be sitting in front of
*that* computer. It would be a different computer in a different world.

> Others, 
like 
the 
OP, 
want 
to 
freeze 
Python 
and 
request 
that 
updated
> versions 
be 
considered 
an 
internal 
fork 
in 
the 
project 
rather 
than
> evolutionary[1] 
progress 
whenever 
their 
inconvenience 
tolerance 
(which
> is 
clearly 
high 
in 
the 
OP's 
case, 
let's 
not 
belittle 
that!) 
is
> exceeded.

It remains to be seen if your idea of "evolution" will still be
remembered in 30 years. From all I've seen, arbitrarily introducing
hardships in the name of progress doesn't work out in practice.
Look around. C++ is dirty but got big because it never seriously broke
with the C heritage. Microsoft is the biggest software company in the world
even though the OS is dirty, but my DOS Turbo C compiler from 1990
probably still runs on a Windows XP system. Apple's market share
in the OS market is still tiny in comparison, I'd argue to a significant
degree because they were constantly "innovating".

I'm not at all convinced Python 3 will succeed, although I'm hoping
for it. Introducing a break like that without at the same time
introducing new technologies is in stark violation of
"practicality beats purity."

My personal battle is to not see my own work die a slow death because
everybody in my field thinks I must be crazy to base my work on something
that is one day this and the next day something incompatible. If you
give it a new name at least, it will be much easier for me to explain
and stand my ground. Also, look at the sqlite experience:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2008-February/011991.html

You really need to be able to have both the old and the new in the same
environment indefinitely, and it has to be easily predictable what you get
when you run "python".

Ralf