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

[Brett Cannon]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 10:20, ssteinerX at gmail.com <ssteinerx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Nov 4, 2009, at 1:06 AM, Lennart Regebro wrote:
>
>> 2009/11/3 ssteinerX at gmail.com <ssteinerx at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> On Nov 2, 2009, at 7:26 PM, James Y Knight wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It really sounds like you're saying that switching to 3.x isn't worth
>>>> the
>>>> cost to you, but you want to force people (including yourself) to do so
>>>> anyways, because ...?
>>>
>>> Because that's the future of Python
>>
>> Or not. Maybe it's a dead branch of Python?
>
> Maybe the 3.x line should just be put out of our misery, merged back to 2.7,
> 2.8, 2.9, and proceed as Glyph suggested in passing with increasing levels
> of deprecation until it just turns into 3.x on its own by running out of
> numbers.
>

I am going to say this once: we are not killing off Python 3.

First off, Python 3 is not even a year old! Considering people have
not fully migrated to 2.6, should we kill it off as well? There is a
certain lack of perspective on time scale. This is especially true
when Guido himself has said on multiple occasions that moving the
community to 3.x would be a mult-year process, as in 3-5 years
process, not 11 months.

Second, the people calling for us to potentially kill 3.x and just
keep 2.x floating along have yet to say that they have tried porting
their code and that it was difficult. Every person who has stepped
forward stating they have done a port has said it was actually
relatively straight-forward. Not only that, we have anecdotal evidence
from multiple people that you can support code way back to whatever
old version of Python RHEL is running.

Third, the same people calling for the death of 3.x have not suggested
they have used it extensively (if at all). I have yet to hear anyone
say that 3.x is not at least a nice improvement, if not a huge one. I
for one find 3.x more enjoyable to work in than 2.x, and that's saying
a lot since I obviously loved Python 2.x enough to get involved in its
development. I have also never heard anyone ever say, "I gave 3.x a
fair shake and honestly, I wish I had not wasted the time." Wait until
3to2 gets to a good state (which will happen; it's my next project --
after I either get us moved to Hg or I simply give up on it -- and I
know I am not the only core developer planning on making it happen).

I realize that there is some fear that it will be time wasted if
people port their code to 3.x if it somehow burns out. But do you
honestly think that python-dev would leave you hanging like that?
Let's take a worst-case scenario here and say that direct pick-up of
3.x after a couple years never happens. Fine, we then begin to
backport features. But if you already ported your code then chances
are you already support the new features. And you know what one of the
first things we would back port would be? Unicode strings and bytes.
And since that is the hardest thing to port to, you will have not
wasted any time.

In other words the calling for the death of 3.x is rather premature
and honestly unfair until people have actually tried to port their
code in earnest and it has been a couple of years for the community to
catch up to what python-dev is pushing out the door (which always
takes a while no matter what minor version has been released).

-Brett