[Tutor] Bad time to get into Python?

[Dotan Cohen]

On 03/02/2008, Kent Johnson <kent37 at tds.net> wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>  > The little programming that I need I have been able to get away with
>  > silly php and bash scripts. However, my needs are getting bigger and I
>  > see Python as an ideal language for my console apps, and the
>  > occasional GUI that I might write for the wife. However, with the
>  > coming of Python3 and the new syntax, is this a bad time to start
>  > learning Python? I don't want to learn 2.x if 3.x will replace it, and
>  > not be compatible, in one year. I know that I can continue using 2.x,
>  > but maybe I should wait until 3.x is released to start learning? What
>  > does the community think?
>
>
> Don't wait. Python 2.5 is very useful today. Python 2.x will be viable
>  for years. Python 2.6 is not even scheduled for release until this
>  summer and it will be maintained long after that. PEP 3000 says,
>
>  "I expect that there will be parallel Python 2.x and 3.x releases for
>  some time; the Python 2.x releases will continue for a longer time than
>  the traditional 2.x.y bugfix releases. Typically, we stop releasing
>  bugfix versions for 2.x once version 2.(x+1) has been released. But I
>  expect there to be at least one or two new 2.x releases even after 3.0
>  (final) has been released, probably well into 3.1 or 3.2. This will to
>  some extent depend on community demand for continued 2.x support,
>  acceptance and stability of 3.0, and volunteer stamina."
>
>
>  http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3000/
>
>
>
> > That asked, I've heard that 2.6 can be configured to warn when using
>  > code that will not run in 3.x. Is this correct? How is this done? I'd
>  > like to do it on a per-file basis, so that I will only need to run one
>  > version of python on this machine. I want my own apps to throw errors,
>  > but not other python apps on this system. Is there some error-level
>  > code that I can run?
>
>
> There is a command-line switch in 2.6, -3, which will enables warnings
>  about features that will be removed in Python 3.0, and some features of
>  Python 3.0 are being back-ported to Python 2.6:
>  http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2.6.html#python-3-0
>
>  There is also a tool being developed (2to3) to convert Python 2.x code
>  to 3.0 semi-automatically:
>  http://svn.python.org/view/sandbox/trunk/2to3/README?rev=57919&view=markup
>
>  However, the goal of these efforts, IIUC, is *not* to allow a single
>  script to run in both 2.6 and 3.0, it is to enable easy porting from 2.6
>  to 3.0. In particular, my understanding is that the -3 warnings will
>  warn of constructs that cannot be correctly converted by 2to3. More
>  details here:
>  http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3000/#compatibility-and-transition
>
>  So I would say the outlook for 2.6 is better than you think but the
>  outlook for compatibility is worse.
>
>
>  Kent
>

Thanks. My concern is not that the code won't run on Python3, rather,
that the effort that I put into learning 2.x will be wasted when 3.x
will be current. Now I'm a bit more confident, however. I'll get to
work learning right away. Thanks.

Dotan Cohen

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