[Python-Dev] RELEASED Python 3.0 final

[Guido van Rossum]

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 10:48 AM,  <glyph at divmod.com> wrote:
> On 10:12 am, thomas at python.org wrote:
>> When he learned he had to go
>> back and relearn and fix them by hand, his actual words were "if thats the
>> case, I'm gonna be forced to use another language". I hope that isn't a
>> typical example of such a case, but I can partly understand the sentiment.
>
> This is an overreaction, but it's a very typical overreaction.  It's
> difficult to recover from a negative first impression even if you have lots
> of opportunities; in the case of an anonymous user trying out Python, the
> user will often stop using it, without telling anyone, and never come back.
>  There's no opportunity to recover.

Sorry, but I really don't see it that dark. Either they weren't ready
to learn a new language anyway, or they'll try something else, and
find that the grass isn't actually that green on the other side of the
fence either.

In general I don't worry about losing one individual potential user;
there are plenty of others. I'd be more worried if someone wrote a
nasty blog rant or a Slashdot article after such an experience -- but
there will always be lots of people pointing out the other side, so
the negative effect of such blogs is usually neutralized quite well.

The one overraction that would really worry me is if influential
people inside the Python developer community were to start dissing
Python 3.0 based on the response of someone in #python.

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