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

[Chris Barker]

OK, this seems weird to me:

For what it’s worth, I almost exclusively write 2/3 compatible code (and
> that’s
> with the “easy” subset of 2.6+ and either 3.2+ or 3.3+)


ouch.


>  However the way it "used" to work
> is that the newest version, with all the new features, would quickly become
> the dominant version within a year or two.


This seems completely contradictory to me: Yes, the 3.* transition can be
difficult, thus the need to support 1.*. But if you are still supporting
2.6, then clearly "the newest version, with all the new features, would
quickly become
the dominant version within a year or two"

But there are those use cases that seem to require sticking with old
version for ages, even if there have not been substantial incomparable
changes.

So we could be on version 2.12 now, and you'd still need to support 2.6,
and still be working in a legacy, least common denominator language. How
does this have anything to do with the 3.* transition?

But plenty of us are kind of stuck on 2.7 at this point -- we can upgrade,
but can't accommodate a major shift (for me it's currently wxPython that's
the blocker -- that may be the only one. Others are either supported or
small enough that we could handle the port ourselves.)

But anyway, if you don't hate 2.6 back in the day, why hate it now?

(yet, I know Donald didn't use the "hate" word).

I guess my pint is that you either would much prefer to be working with the
latest and greatest cool features or not -- but if you do the problem at
this point isn't anything about py3, it's about the fact that many of us
are required to support old versions, period.

-Chris


 However I can't really justify for most situations supporting _only_ those
> things because even today they are not the dominant version (or really
> close
> to it in any number I have access too). This means that if I want to take
> advantage of something newer I'm essentially dropping the largest part of
> the ecosystem.
>

Are you primarily writing packages for others to use? if so, then yes. But
I wonder how many people are in that camp? Don't most of us spend most of
our time writing our own purpose-built code?

That might be a nice thing to see in a survey, actually.


-Chris

-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R            (206) 526-6959   voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE   (206) 526-6329   fax
Seattle, WA  98115       (206) 526-6317   main reception

Chris.Barker at noaa.gov
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20141215/fb6b9c76/attachment.html>