Python 3

[Terry Reedy]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> I've played around with 3.0, and I've read the What's New for 3.1 (and am 
> installing 3.1 now), and while the changes look nice, I'm not sure that 
> they're nice enough to deal with the pain of 2to3 migration.

I am in a different position since I did not have current code that 
would need migrating.

> So how about that, 3.1 fans? What are the most compelling reasons for you 
> that convinced you to change?

I am writing a book on algorithms that uses a subset of 3.1 as the 
algorithm language. It it simply cleaner and easier to explain to people 
not already familiar with the quirks of 2.x. One small but 
important-to-me example. I do not need to put 'from __future__ import 
integerdivision' (or whatever the incantation is) as the top of files. 
Hence I do not need to waste energy (mime and readers) explaining 
furture imports and the specifics of the old versus new meaning of int/int.

While I initially resisted the text==unicode change, I now see it as 
essential to the future of Python as a world algorithm language.

I admit that I am more bothered about the leftover quirks (to me -- 
sludge) in 2.x than most.

Unless you are the author/maintainer of an essential library, I have no 
opinion as to what you do with old code, or even what you use for new code.

I do care about people trying to disparage or sabotage 3.x.

Terry Jan Reedy