[Python-Dev] RELEASED Python 3.0 final

[Guido van Rossum]

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 5:45 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aahz wrote:
>> I believe that it would be a shame and a disservice to Python if there
>> were a large proportion of the Python community that discouraged the use
>> of 3.0; I also believe it would be a shame and a disservice to Python if
>> you (and other people) tell conservatives like me that we should keep our
>> mouths shut.

I hope I am not perceived as telling you to keep your mouth shut. I am
merely hoping that you will decide for yourself after having heard me
out.

> I don't think being honest about the situation is going to hurt anything
> in the long run. There are lots of advantages to 3.0, but also plenty of
> good reasons to stick with 2.x as well.
>
> At this point in time, my own recommendation would be that if someone
> doesn't have time to do a proper evaluation of the situation (talking
> production development here, not "learning for fun"), then I would
> probably still point them at 2.5. That recommendation will probably
> change to 2.6 in a couple of months (since it usually takes a few months
> after a release for the rest of the Python ecosystem to catch up with a
> new 2.x release).
>
> If they have the time though, my recommendation would be for them to do
> their *own* evaluation, looking both at things that favour 3.0 like
> Unicode handling and general developer convenience, as well as the
> things that currently favour 2.x like IO speed and availability of 3rd
> party libraries.

That sounds right. I just heard (via Martin) that PEP 3131 (Unicode
letters in identifiers) is already a big hit in Japan.

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