[Python-ideas] docs.python.org

[Barry Warsaw]

On Oct 27, 2012, at 03:15 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:

>The message is clear, but some people just don't like the current
>message: Python 2 is still the recommended default version for
>production systems and applications.

I would hedge that and say that for new work where you have your Python 3
dependencies available, Python 3 should be the recommended default.  In
Ubuntu, we are actively porting our core system utilities to Python 3, but
some dependencies stop us for getting all the way there.  Xapian and Twisted
come to mind, but the Twisted folks are making great progress, so I expect
that for our Twisted apps at least, that story will be better soon.

Python 3.3 has some very clear advantages, so we are pushing to make that the
default leading up to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

>- Fedora, RHEL and derivatives still require Python 2 for all their
>system utilities (Ubuntu at least has migrated their core system
>tools, but I don't know about Debian upstream)

Debian Wheezy is in freeze so I wouldn't expect a lot of adoption there until
after that's released.  Then I hope that we'll be able to push those things
upstream.

>I don't think the ecosystem is to the point where it makes sense to
>flip the switch just yet, but I do think it would be reasonable to
>define the ecosystem state where we *will* flip the switch. The two
>key missing pieces for me are:
>- a Django release with non-experimental Python 3 support (i.e. likely
>to happen with Django 1.6)
>- an official release of PIL (or Pillow) that supports Python 3

One way to look at it is that there doesn't necessary have to be just one big
switch.  There's a big bank of switches, many of which can be flipped now.
Yes, I'd love for the whole line of 'em to be Python 3 green, and eventually
they will be, but if you don't need Django or PIL (or whatever still isn't
ported yet), don't wait, port!

Cheers,
-Barry
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