[Tutor] Which version of python should i use?

[Amal Thomas]

Thank you very much..!! I am starting to learn python for my Bioinformatics
work, so I would look for the version that has libraries helpful for me..


On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 6:38 PM, Dave Angel <davea at davea.name> wrote:

> On 05/20/2013 05:59 AM, Amal Thomas wrote:
>
>> hi,
>>     I am a beginner. I am using a unix sytem (ubuntu 12.10). Python 2.7.3
>> is installed in my system. I found out that Python has version upto 3.3.2.
>>
>
> Welcome, and thanks for telling us your environment up front.
>
>
>
>  Should I update my python version?
>>
>
> No.  Your OS has lots of dependencies on that installed Python, and if you
> remove that one (eg. replace it), many things will stop working.
>
> HOWEVER, you can install a second Python, of whatever version, and use
> that for all your own experimenting and learning.  So the question is which
> one you should use for learning.  My comments at the end.
>
>
>  Is the syntaxes of the each version
>> different?
>>
>>
> Yes.  Not only syntax but semantics as well.  Version 3.0 was deliberately
> a breaking update, where many of the painful gotchas in the language were
> fixed, even if it meant things were incompatible.  There is a 2to3 utility,
> but the transition can be painful for large programs.
>
> Which one should you learn on?
>
> #1 --- if you're committed to a particular tutorial, use the version that
> matches the tutorial.  At your stage, you don't want to have to convert
> every example in your head before getting it to work.
>
> #2 --- If you have a particular library or libraries that you plan to use,
> and it's only currently available for one version, then use that version.
>
> #3 --- If neither of the above apply, then use 3.3 or the soon-coming 3.4.
>
> What's different?  For a beginner, the most noticeable different is that
> the print statement in 2.x was replaced by a print function in 3.x  For
> really simple cases, that just means slap a parentheses around the
> argument(s).  But the print statement has syntax for redirecting to a file,
> while the print function has a parameter.  And the technique for
> suppressing the trailing newline is different.  Etc.
>
> The second most noticeable difference is that 3.x handles Unicode
> directly, so that a string is Unicode, and if you want bytes, those are
> different.
>
>
>
>
> --
> DaveA
>
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-- 
*AMAL THOMAS
Third Year Undergraduate Student
Department of Biotechnology
IIT KHARAGPUR-721302*
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