[Python-Dev] The end of 2.7

[Alfredo Solano Martínez]

I think the question average python users have is "What's in it for me?".
While the guts have undergone lots of changes, from the outside it is mostly
perceived as the unicode-by-default and the print function. As per Bret's talk
at pycon [1], speed is roughly the same, which is great, considering all the
new stuff, but not a compelling reason to change for Joe Programmer. Joe will
probably consider PyPy because "moar speez" is an easy sell, though.

In a way, python3 is victim of the success of python2. Inertia is a powerful
force, and honestly, most of the time python2 just works (easy to write, easy
to modify, fast enough). Maybe it's just a marketing problem, and more
examples of "things you can only do with python3" are needed. Or maybe for all
the good changes already there, it still needs a killer feature, i.e. the
proverbial elevator pitch, that sets it apart from its older brother.

Alfredo

[1] http://pyvideo.org/video/1730/python-33-trust-me-its-better-than-27