[Python-Dev] (Looking for) A Retrospective on the Move to Python 3

[Brett Cannon]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2018 at 10:19 Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:

> On Apr 26, 2018, at 09:28, Eric Snow <ericsnowcurrently at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 10:25 AM, Eric Snow <ericsnowcurrently at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> In pondering our approach to future Python major releases, I found
> >> myself considering the experience we've had with Python 3.  The whole
> >> Py3k effort predates my involvement in the community so I missed a
> >> bunch of context about the motivations, decisions, and challenges.
> >> While I've pieced some of that together over the years now since I've
> >> been around, I've certainly seen much of the aftermath.  For me, at
> >> least, it would be helpful to have a bit more insight into the
> >> history. :)
>
> It would certainly be an interesting document, but I suspect you’ll get a
> bit of the old “ask 3 lawyers and get 5 opinions” kind of response. ;)
>
> As I remember it, there was definitely a feeling like, this would be our
> only chance to clean up some annoying cruft, and rectify some (in
> hindsight) incorrect design decisions made over the years, couple with a
> healthy dose of “we have no idea how to do the bytes/str split in a
> backward compatible way".  There was probably a sense that the Python
> community was just small enough to be able to handle such a disruptive
> change, but wouldn’t ever be so again.  The latter is definitely true
> today, even if the former was overly optimistic.
>

I agree with everything Barry said. There are some lessons in hindsight of
how we could have handled bytes/str, but it was more of a decision of
"really long transition versus a short one" -- jokes on us for what "short"
became ;) -- which we simply won't make ever again.
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