[Python-Dev] 2.7 is here until 2020, please don't call it a waste.

[Gregory P. Smith]

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 12:24 AM Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On 29 May 2015 11:01 am, "Victor Stinner" <victor.stinner at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Why not continue to enhance Python 3 instead of wasting our time with
> > Python 2? We have limited resources in term of developers to maintain
> > Python.
> >
> > (I'm not talking about fixing *bugs* in Python 2 which is fine with me.)
>
> I'm actually OK with volunteers deciding that even fixing bugs in 2.7
> isn't inherently rewarding enough for them to be willing to do it for free
> on their own time.
>

That is 100% okay.

What is not okay is for python-dev representatives to respond to users (in
any list/forum/channel) reporting bugs in 2.7 or asking if a fix in 3 can
be backported to 2.7 with things akin to "just use Python 3" or "sorry, 2.7
is critical fixes only. move to python 3 already." This is actively driving
our largest users away.  I bring this up because a user was bemoaning how
useless they feel python core devs are because of this attitude recently.
Leading to feelings of wishing to just abandon CPython if not Python all
together.

I'm sure I have even made some of those responses myself (sorry!). My point
here is: know it. recognize it. don't do it anymore. It harms the community.

A correct and accurate response to desires to make non-api-breaking changes
in 2.7 is "Patches that do not change any APIs for 2.7 are welcome in the
issue tracker." possibly including "I don't have the bandwidth to review
2.7 changes, find someone on python-dev to review and champion this for you
if you need it."  Finding someone may not always be easy. But at least is
still the "patches welcome" attitude and suggests that the work can be done
if someone is willing to do it. Lets make a concerted effort to not be
hostile and against it by default.

Ex: Is someone with a python application that is a million of lines
supposed to have everyone involved in that drop the productive work they
are doing and spend that porting their existing application to python 3
because we have so far failed to provide the tools to make that migration
easy?  No.  Empathize with our community.  Feel their pain.  (and everyone
who is working on tools to aid the transition: keep doing that! Our users
are gonna need it unless we don't want them as users anymore.)

We committed to supporting 2.7 until 2020 in 2014 per
https://hg.python.org/peps/rev/76d43e52d978.  That means backports of
important bug or performance fixes should at least be allowed on the table,
even if hairy, even if you won't work on them yourselves on a volunteer
basis. This is the first long term support release of Python ever. This is
what LTS means.  LTS could *also* stand for Learn To Support...

-gps

> Stepping up to extrinsically reward activities that are beneficial for
> customers but aren't intrinsically interesting enough for people to be
> willing to do for free is one of the key reasons commercial open source
> redistributors get paid.
>
> That more explicitly commercial presence is a dynamic we haven't
> historically had to deal with in core development, so there are going to be
> some growing pains as we find an arrangement that everyone is comfortable
> with (or is at least willing to tolerate, but I'm optimistic we can do
> better than that).
>
> Cheers,
> Nick.
>
> >
> > --
> >
> > By the way, I just wrote sixer, a new tool to generate patches to port
> > OpenStack to Python 3 :-)
> > https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sixer
> >
> > It's based on regex, so it's less reliable than 2to3, 2to6 or
> > modernize, but it's just enough for my specific use case. On
> > OpenStack, it's not possible to send one giant patch "hello, this is
> > python 3". Code is modified by small and incremental changes.
> >
> > Come on in the Python 3 world and... always look on the bright side of
> > life ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOAtCOsNuVM )!
> >
> > Victor
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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