[Python-Dev] The end of 2.7

Skip Montanaro skip at pobox.com
Mon Apr 8 22:40:26 CEST 2013


> If from the start you use:
> - six
...

There's the rub.  We are not blessed with Guido's time machine where I
work.  Much of the Python code we run was written long before six was
a gleam in anybody's eye.  Heck, some of it was probably written
before some active members of python-dev graduated from high school.
:-)

I'm really amazed at how many people seem to have the impression that
porting to Python 3 should be no big deal.  Please go back and read
Guido's post in this thread from yesterday.  He identified many
barriers to moving between versions.  This is not really a
Python-specific problem.  All large organizations encounter this, and
wind up supporting lots of legacy code, long after its original
authors are gone.  Go to monster.com and search for COBOL or Ada.

As I wrote in my previous message, we are only now moving from 2.4 to
2.7.  If moving to Python 3 wasn't going to be much more difficult, I
think we would have attempted that.  2.7 Seemed like the better step
though, especially considering its compatibility with 2.4 and the fact
that it has a lot of things backported from Python 3 to ease the
eventual transition to Python 3.

Skip


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