[Python-Dev] 2.7 Release? 2.7 == last of the 2.x line?

[Eric Smith]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>> A Python 3 version of NumPy might be enough of an improvement to bring
>> *more* scientists and engineers onboard if the Python 3.x version shows
>> what great productivity gains are to be had with Python 3.x over 2.x.
> 
> I would be really surprised if 2.7 would simplify porting to 3.x. How
> could that possibly work?

The only things I can think of that would go into this category are 
features like:
- PEP 3118, revised buffer protocol. If the buffer API that numpy
   uses is not present in py3k (I'm no expert on the subject, but
   it seems this way from a recent thread on python-dev), then if
   they could move to PEP 3118 in 2.7 their migration to 3.x would
   be easier
- short float repr. This would remove a class of hard-to-find
   problems from a migration from 2.7 to 3.x.
- Maybe io, but I don't know enough about it to say.

But I definitely agree that backporting language features new to 3.x 
don't make it easier. Examples are nonlocal and required keyword args.

Eric.