[Python-Dev] Python 2/3 porting HOWTO has been updated

[Nick Coghlan]

On 6 December 2014 at 10:44, Benjamin Peterson <benjamin at python.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014, at 18:16, Donald Stufft wrote:
>> Do we need to update it? Can it just redirect to the 3 version?
>
> Technically, yes, of course. However, that would unexpected take you out
> of the Python 2 docs "context". Also, that doesn't solve the problem for
> the downloadable versions of the docs.

As Benjamin says, we'll likely want to update the Python 2 version
eventually for the benefit of the downloadable version of the docs,
but Brett's also right it makes sense to wait for feedback on the
Python 3 version and then backport the most up to date text wholesale.

In terms of the text itself, this is a great update Brett - thanks!

A couple of specific notes:

* http://python-future.org/compatible_idioms.html is my favourite
short list of "What are the specific Python 2 only habits that I need
to unlearn in order to start writing 2/3 compatible code?". It could
be worth mentioning in addition to the What's New documents and the
full Python 3 Porting book.

* it's potentially worth explicitly noting the "bytes(index_value)"
and "str(bytes_value)" traps when discussing the bytes/text changes.
Those do rather different things in Python 2 & 3, but won't emit an
error or warning in either version.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia