Migration to Python 3.x

[Stéfan van der Walt]

Hi Emmanuelle

On 9 August 2016 at 14:44, Emmanuelle Gouillart <
emmanuelle.gouillart at nsup.org> wrote:

> about backporting, what kind of backporting mechanism do you have in
> mind? Merging commits by hand, or something more elaborate?
>

Yes, I think backporting bug-fixes from time to time and making a point
release should suffice.  The ports may sometimes require some 3-to-2'ing.


> It may be a silly idea, but can't we do it the other way around, that is
> have an experimental branch where developers who wish to write
> Python3-only code can work, and in which commits to master are merged if
> they are Python 3 compatible? It could give us some time to evaluate
> whether most developers want to write code that is not compatible with
> Python 2.
>

I don't think that's a silly idea, but I also don't think that addresses
two of the points I raised:

- Remove developer overhead associated with keeping both Python 2 and
3-isms in mind

I'd like developers to start thinking in Python 3, not the other way
around.  Barriers for Python 3 implementations should be removed, not
raised, given that that's the direction we'll have to move eventually.

- Utilize new language features such as the @-operator and required keyword
arguments

These are not available unless we make Python 3 the default.

As for whether most developers *want* to write code that is incompatible
with Python 2, my guess is that they won't pay much attention.  I've moved
to Python 3 more than a year ago already, and quite a few of my personal
projects already do not run under Python 2---not because I actively pushed
for Python 3, just because I didn't explicitly go back and fix it for the
2.7 case.  I also can't think of many reasons to justify that effort.

The only people who should be affected by the suggested change are those
stuck on Python 2 but need the latest scikit-image features.  But perhaps
they can also contribute some of the (fairly lightweight) backporting
efforts to help out?

Best regards
Stéfan
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