Python 3 put-downs: What's the point?

[Tim Chase]

On 07/05/2010 02:50 AM, Gregor Horvath wrote:
> Am Sun, 04 Jul 2010 18:51:54 -0500
> schrieb Tim Chase<python.list at tim.thechases.com>:
>
>> I think it's the same venting of frustration that caused veteran
>> VB6 developers to start calling VB.Net "Visual Fred" -- the
>> language was too different and too non-backwards-compatible.
>>
>
> VB6 ->  VB.NET and Python 2 ->  3 is not a valid comparison.
>
> VB6 and VB.NET are totally different languages and technologies, with
> some similarity in syntax. This is not true for Python 2->3.
> This is an healthy organic language growth, not an abandon of a
> language.

The quintessential example is Py3's breaking of Hello World. 
It's a spectrum of language changes -- Visual Fred just happens 
to be MUCH further down the same spectrum having more dramatic 
changes.  Only a subset of $OLD_VER (whether Py2 or VB6) code 
will run unmodified under $NEW_VER (whether Py3 or VB.Net).  It 
just happens that the subset for Python is considerably larger 
than the subset for VB (and Python's conversion tools seem a 
little more useful than VB's, IMHO).  IIRC, neither raw VB6 nor 
Py2 byte-code will run raw in the new environment (old VB .exe 
files don't make use of .Net libraries/CLR, nor do Py2 .pyc files 
run under Py3) so a project-rebuild is a minimum (though in Py3, 
s/minimum/negligible/) requirement.

A little defensive coding in $OLD_VER also helps, and here I'd 
say Python developers had a MUCH longer lead-time to understand 
scope & magnitude of the coming changes; VB6 developers (former 
self included) had VB.Net foisted on them with much less 
heralding about the areas-of-breakage.

I'm very much +0 on Py3...it doesn't impact my life yet and it's 
not a regular part of my coding, but the changes I've seen are 
good for the language and the future of Python.  But 
breaking-changes freak some folks out, leading to the put-downs 
referenced by the OP.  As a former VB6 developer, the shift to 
VB.Net was enough to send me packing.  The shift from Py2 to Py3 
will be bumpy, but not enough to lose me as a developer.

-tkc