[Python-Dev] What's New text on future maintenance

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 07:52:49PM +1000, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> 3.x). I'll take a stab at a more accurate rationale:

Thanks!  I've applied the scalpel and reduced it to:

* A policy decision was made to silence warnings only of interest to
  developers by default.  :exc:`DeprecationWarning` and its
  descendants are now ignored unless otherwise requested, preventing
  users from seeing warnings triggered by an application.  (Carried
  out in :issue:`7319`.)

  In previous releases, :exc:`DeprecationWarning` messages were
  enabled by default, providing Python developers with a clear
  indication of where their code may break in a future major version
  of Python.

  However, there are increasingly many users of Python-based
  applications who are not directly involved in the development of
  those applications.  :exc:`DeprecationWarning` messages are
  irrelevant to such users, making them worry about an application
  that's actually working correctly and burdening the developers of
  these applications with responding to these concerns.

  You can re-enable display of :exc:`DeprecationWarning` messages by
  running Python with the :option:`-Wdefault` (short form:
  :option:`-Wd`) switch, or you can add
  ``warnings.simplefilter('default')`` to your code.

Benjamin suggested being very definite about a 5-year maintenance
period, but I don't want to write any checks our butt can't cash, so
I've left the text as "Maintenance releases for Python 2.7 will
probably be made for 5 years."  An alternative formulation might say
it will be maintained for the next two 3.x releases, not the next one
as usual.

I thought about Ben Finney's suggestion to not give a timespan and
describe the conditions for 2.x maintenance continuing, but those
conditions are complicated to describe -- if 3.x doesn't catch on?  if
the 3.x transition is slow?  if there's a significant 2.x user base
that remains?  if someone starts a 2.x maintenance team? -- and might
be a confusing tangle of what-if statements.

--amk