Python 2.0b1 is released!

[Grant Griffin]

Nick Bower wrote:
> 
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > A unique event in all the history of Python: two releases on the same
> > day!  (At least in my timezone. :-)
> >
> 
> umm... could someone tell me why python 2.0 is not called python 1.61
> (going by the relase schedule and amount of changes).  Is there *really*
> that much difference between python 2.0 and 1.6 that a major version
> change was required?

Among other reasons, it's partly a marketing thing.  I think in the
"open source" world, one is proud of how low one's version numbers are;
this supposedly reflects how stable the product is.

But in the commercial/Microsoft domain, nothing below version 3 is
deemed to be all that good.  This is because everything that Microsoft
ever released that was fairly mature was at least Version 3: DOS 3.2,
Windows 3.1, NT 3.5.1, etc.  More recently, Microsoft has started
calling things "95", "98", and now "2000" in order to shake this (and,
strangely, to deliberately make their stuff seem nearly "obsolete"
before it ever gets released.)  However, they now release "Service
Packs", in which something isn't truly stable until it gets to--you
guessed it--Service Pack 3. ;-)

Version 1.5.2 of Python works just great on Windows.  But I gotta tell
you that in the dim-witted, marketing-succeptible part of my brain, it
still bugs me that it's only "Version 1" (after 10 years!)  Then again,
by calling the new one "Version 2", they obviously haven't completely
solved that problem.  ;-)

Incidently, the very first public release of my two products (which run
only on Windows) were version 3. ;-)

let's-face-it:-version-numbers-are-arbitrary-anyway-<wink>-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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