[Python-Dev] Python 2.x and 3.x use survey, 2014 edition

[Mark Roberts]

So, I'm more than aware of how to write Python 2/3 compatible code. I've
ported 10-20 libraries to Python 3 and write Python 2/3 compatible code at
work. I'm also aware of how much writing 2/3 compatible code makes me hate
Python as a language. It'll be a happy day when one of the two languages
dies so that I never have to write code like that again. However, my point
was that just because the core libraries by usage are *starting* to roll
out Python 3 support doesn't mean that things are "easy" or "convenient"
yet. There are too many libraries in the long tail which fulfill
semi-common purposes and haven't been moved over yet. Yeah, sure, they
haven't been updated in years... but neither has the language they're built
on.

I suppose what I'm saying is that the long tail of libraries is far more
valuable than it seems the Python3 zealots are giving it credit for. Please
don't claim it's "easy" to move over just because merely most of the top 20
libraries have been moved over. :-/

-Mark

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Dan Stromberg <drsalists at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 11:35 AM, Mark Roberts <wizzat at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I disagree. I know there's a huge focus on The Big Libraries (and
> wholesale
> > migration is all but impossible without them), but the long tail of
> > libraries is still incredibly important. It's like saying that migrating
> the
> > top 10 Perl libraries to Perl 6 would allow people to completely ignore
> all
> > of CPAN. It just doesn't make sense.
>
> Things in the Python 2.x vs 3.x world aren't that bad.
>
> See:
> https://python3wos.appspot.com/ and
> https://wiki.python.org/moin/PortingPythonToPy3k
> http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/Intro-to-Python/ (writing code
> to run on 2.x and 3.x)
>
> I believe just about everything I've written over the last few years
> either ran on 2.x and 3.x unmodified, or ran on 3.x alone.  If you go
> the former route, you don't need to wait for your libraries to be
> updated.
>
> I usually run pylint twice for my projects (after each change, prior
> to checkin), once with a 2.x interpreter, and once with a 3.x
> interpreter (using
> http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/svn/this-pylint/trunk/this-pylint) , but
> I gather pylint has the option of running on a 2.x interpreter and
> warning about anything that wouldn't work on 3.x.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20141212/f441f71d/attachment.html>