[Python-Dev] RELEASED Python 3.0 final

[Guido van Rossum]

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 19:10, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 11:27 PM,  <glyph at divmod.com> wrote:
>> > With all due respect, for me, "library support" and "serious use" are
>> > synonymous.
>>
>> Glyph, I cannot have a discussion with you if every single post of
>> yours is longer than my combined daily output. Please spend some time
>> writing shorter posts. I'm sure I'm not the only one here with a short
>> attention span. :-)
>
> Allow me to paraphrase glyph (with whom I'm in complete agreement, for what
> it's worth): many newbies will be disappointed by Python if they start with
> Python 3.0 and discover that most of the cool possibilities they had heard
> about are 'being worked on' and not quite ready. I don't doubt that 3.0 will
> be easier for the new programmer to learn, but I do not believe the average
> "Oh, I heard about Python, let's learn it" person should be pointed to 3.0
> right now. They should be encouraged to learn 2.6 -- or even 2.5.

Thanks for the summary! Maybe Glyph should just pipe his email through you. :-)

Without more context it's impossible to make a good recommendation.
Most people probably want to learn Python because they want to access
some system for which Python is required -- whether that's Blender,
Google App Engine, their Nokia cell phone, or something that some of
their colleagues have written (most Googlers learning Python fall in
that category :-). In that case they don't have a choice -- they
should learn the version that is used by the system they want to use.
Obviously that's going to be 2.x in most cases, at least for a while.

But I disagree that "most of the cool possibilities they have heard
about" are necessarily third party libraries. Python's standard
library has lots of stuff to offer.

> In spite of Python being a programming language, there is a difference
> between 'casual user of the language' and 'library developer'; 3.0 is
> certainly a must for all actual library developers, and I'm sure most of
> them know about 3.0 by now. We're talking about first impressions for people
> without that knowledge.

Well if most library developers already know 3.0 by now, I would hope
they aren't going to sit on their hands, and solve the issues at hand!
In the mean time, I don't mind if people learn 3.0 first and 2.6
second. It's probably easier that way than the other way around. :-)

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)