Those two controversial 2nd & 3rd paragraphs of my ch 1

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Daniel Fetchinson:
> 
> Nobody is deliberately trying to keep people from porting! I think you
> misunderstand what is being said, these two statements are very
> different: (1) single code base working on both python versions (2)
> creating a second code from a code so that the second code works with
> python 3 and the first one with python 2. Statement (2) is about
> porting, statement (1) is about something else.
> 
> Having said all that I actually seriously doubt (probably in agreement
> with you) that Alf is able to write good and helpful material on the
> relationship between python 2 and 3, porting, migrating, etc, based on
> his emails :)

You're mostly absolutely right. :-)

I think it's OK to write things like "It's possible to travel to the moon" and 
"It's very difficult to travel to the moon", because those are just general 
observations  --  even though an astronaut may disagree with the latter stm.

But in order to write about the design of rockets, planning, economics, the 
physics of it, life support, etc., all the nitty gritty details about traveling 
to the moon so as to enable someone to do it, one needs to have done it.

And so far I haven't done that 2.x/3.x compatible code thing except for some 
very trivial stuff. It so happened that what I wrote in Oct 2009 or whenever it 
was, about "/", was verified just now by stumbling upon the "/" bug in 
[wave.py]. But that apparent detail was again just a general observation based 
on common sense and experience with similar differences in other languages, much 
like "you can expect problems if you have a big hole where your rocket's nose 
tip should be". To write about actual porting, version-compatible code, etc., so 
that it's useful to the reader would or will require far more. I'm probably not 
going to do that.

There are however some comments about 2.x/3.x differences, e.g. about "range" 
and "/", and I'm just now progressing into territory where I'll mention "long".

And I think that those comments constitute good and helpful material on the 
relationship between 2.x and 3.x?


Cheers,

- Alf