[Python-Dev] Spreading the Python 3 religion (was Re: PEP 414 - Unicode Literals for Python 3)

[Barry Warsaw]

On Feb 28, 2012, at 08:41 AM, R. David Murray wrote:

>Hmm.  It seems to me that this argument implies that PEP 414 is just
>as likely to *slow down* adoption of Python3 as it is to speed it up,
>since if this issue is as big a barrier as indicated, many potential
>porters may choose to wait until OS vendors are supporting 3.3 widely
>before starting their ports.  We are clearly expecting that the reality
>is that the impact will be at worse neutral, and hopefully positive.

If PEP 414 helps some projects migrate to Python 3, great.

But I really hope we as a community don't perpetuate the myth that you cannot
port to Python 3 without this, and I hope that we spend as much effort on
educating other Python developers on how to port to Python 3 *right now*
supporting Python 2.6, 2.7, and 3.2.  That's the message we should be
spreading and we should be helping developers understand exactly how to do
this effectively, among the many great options that exist today.  Only in the
most extreme cases or the most inertially challenged projects should we say
"wait for Python 3.3".

Cheers,
-Barry