[Python-ideas] Proposal: Moratorium on Python language changes

[Christian Heimes]

Stefan Behnel wrote:
> As a Python language user, I must say that I cannot remember any recent(?)
> language syntax proposal on python-ideas that would have made the language
> substantially better. Plus, a lot of the code that gets written even today
> is still required to stay Py2.x compatible, sometimes as old as 2.3.
> Especially library or tooling code will often not even use Python 2.6
> features for a while, let alone Python 3.x features. That doesn't mean you
> can't 2to3 it, it just means that it won't use the new syntax features.


Dito! The last useful (and today widely used) syntax change in the 2.x
series was the 'with' statement. I don't see urgent need for any syntax
or language chances in the next couple of year. The only new feature I
can think of, that might require new syntax, is parallel processing and
executing multithreaded, GIL-less code. Such a feature is going to take
a long time before it's implemented.

I'm +1 on your proposal, Guido. Do you propose a fixed time span for the
moratorium or a status quo? Can we continue changing the language once
Jython and IronPython have fully implemented Python 2.7 / 3.2?

Christian