[Python-Dev] Language Summit Follow-Up

[Nick Coghlan]

On 31 May 2014 03:42, "Mark Roberts" <wizzat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What I'd really like to see is a Python 2.8 that makes sufficient changes
to Python 2 that writing libraries which cross the boundary between 2 and 3
is relatively easy instead of a painful nightmarish chore.

That's what projects like python-future are for. Python 2.8 wouldn't help,
since most folks still target 2.6 for compatibility with stable Linux
platforms like RHEL, CentOS, Debian Stable & Ubuntu LTS.

This is a key point folks often miss in these discussions: even putting
Python 3 aside entirely, the migration of the overall ecosystem from Python
2.6 to Python *2.7* is not yet finished. RHEL 7 (which uses 2.7 as the
system Python) is currently only available as a release candidate, and the
same necessarily holds true for its downstream rebuilds like CentOS. We saw
this happen with Python 2.4 as well: for a lot of library developers, the
day CentOS 6 finally landed (with Python 2.6 as the system Python) was the
day they finally decided to drop support for Python 2.4.

It's that slow adoption cycle for new feature releases *within* the Python
2 series that means the effort that would be needed to create a Python 2.8
release is better put into tools and utilities that people can use *now*
(like PyPI backports of standard library modules, python-future and the
"pymigrate" utility Steve Dower suggested and Eric Snow has started working
on), tweaks to 2.7 itself (like PEP 466 and a possible future backport of
the ensurepip changes) and Python 3 changes that improve both Python 3
*and* the subset it shares with Python 2 (like the restoration of binary
interpolation support approved for 3.5).

Cheers,
Nick.

P.S. I've written more about adoption cycles for new Python versions at
http://python-notes.curiousefficiency.org/en/latest/python3/questions_and_answers.html#wouldn-t-a-python-2-8-release-help-ease-the-transition
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