Is this a good time to start learning python?

[Eduardo O. Padoan]

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 4:20 PM,  <lbonafide at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  > > > Please explain how the existence of Python 3.0 would break your production
>  > >  > code.
>  >
>  > >  The existence of battery acid won't hurt me either, unless I come into
>  > >  contact with it.  If one eventually upgrades to 3.0 -- which is
>  > >  ostensibly the desired path -- their code could break and require
>  > >  fixing.
>  >
>
> > And how would this happen? I dont know of any good software
>  > distribution that upgrades a component to another major revision
>  > without asking first. The desired path is that, if somene wants to
>  > port his software to Python 3.0, that he follow the migration plan.
>
>  Of course, that's the point.  If you want to upgrade to the next
>  version of Python, you have to fix your code.   That stinks.  Your
>  other alternative is to remain stuck with Python 2.x, but eventually
>  the support for that will dry up.

"Eventually" it will take a decade to happen. 2.x support will not be
dropped untill gets (much) more users than Python 3.x.

>  > Final users will install Python 3.0 as python3.0 anyway, with Python
>  > 2.x as default 'python' binary.
>  >
>
> > >  Backward compatibility is important.   C++ could break all ties with C
>  > >  to "clean up" as well, but it would be a braindead move that would
>  > >  break existing code bases upon upgrade.
>  >
>
> > C++ is not C. No one "upgrades" from C to C++.
>
>  You misunderstand.  C++ has a lot of "warts" to maintain backwards
>  compatibility with C.  The standards committee could eliminate these
>  warts to make the language "cleaner", but it would break a lot of
>  systems.

It would not "break" anything that not move from C to C++, this is my point.
People not willing to take the migration path (porting to 2.6, using
the -3 flag, refactoring and re-running the tests untill the warning
are gone, using the 2to3 tool...) will not upgrade. No one will force
you to do it. 2.6 will not desappear from the python.org site anytime
soon.

-- 
 Eduardo de Oliveira Padoan
http://www.advogato.org/person/eopadoan/
Bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/edcrypt