[Python-Dev] PEP 453 (pip bootstrapping) ready for pronouncement?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:

>
> On Sep 27, 2013, at 2:14 PM, "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Also, I think that proponents of backporting this PEP are missing
> > something important.  Specifically, why are we encouraging the use of
> > Python 2.7 for "new users"?  Shouldn't we use this as an opportunity
> > to say, "Move to Python 3.4 and forget the 'agony of installing pip'
> > issue forever?"
>
> Because reality is that new users are still likely to be using Python 2.7.
> Python 3
> is just now starting to be really usable, however there's a huge corpus of
> existing
> tutorials, course work, books etc for Python 2.7. As Python 3 becomes more
> usable
> that existing corpus of material will be ported over to Python 3 but in
> the interim
> there is still a pretty large hurdle for new users to get over.
>
> That's assuming that they are even able to use Python 3 and whatever they
> are trying
> to do with all of their libraries are ported to Python3. I still think
> Python 2.7 is a better
> target for new users because if you're using Python 3.x theirs a high
> chance you'll
> need to port a library or two still.
>

Based on my day-to-day experience this is still very true. (And yes, I'm
slowly turning the tide. But it will take a long time and I am committed to
giving users the choice.)

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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