Please, don't tell me how "Python3 is good" - I know everything. I just still don't approve the way the transition was made - if we got to Python 3 through progressive deprecation and evolution via python 2.8 and 2.9, we wouldn't be where we are now.
The Django project has added Python 3 compatibility in Django 1.5 as experimental. It remained experimental in 1.6. It became supported in 1.7. They announced around that time that Django 2.0 would only support Python 3.
Then, they released a first 3.x compatible LTS with Django 1.8. Then they released 1.9, compatible with 3.4 and 3.5.
They then release 1.10. And they are releasing 1.11 soon as an LTS, which they previously announced would be the last in the 1.x branch and the last to support Python 2. It will be supported for AT LEAST THREE YEARS after its released.
Good lord. If the deprecation and evolution gets any more progressive, it'll compete with darwinism. And yet,
alanfranzoni complains about it. And YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT IT elsewhere in the thread, saying they're "screwing their userbase" and "leaving their users in the dust".
Don't you think you're being a little fricking entitled? This is an open source project and they're doing quite literally everything right.
I couldn't agree more. This transition and their release management in general has been handled excellently for years. Anyone complaining here is quite literally whining.
You talk as if Python 3 were a dialect of Lisp. It's still Python, looks like Python and feels like Python. In fact, I think most of my Python 3 code runs on Python 2.
You talk as if the switch doesn't look like a bunch of arbitrary decisions made on the appearance of purity. If more of an attempt had been made a maintaining compatibility, there wouldn't be nearly as much fight. Python 3 becomes a bit uncanny valley for me when I try to code in it and I tend to use a different language as there less of an internal code switch, especially as I still have to maintain large numbers of python2 code.
The truth is, it's Python. I'm not looking for a great language, I'm looking for language that'll help me get work done... quickly and not give me a migraine if I have to come back to it (Perl). The 3 changes are just big enough to catch me (and every other Python programmer I've worked with) so that I can't just program, which tends to push me towards keeping it in 2.7 or switching to another language, where the similarities don't exist to pull me into bad habits. The whole mess really sours me on the language that made me love programming again.
The Python ecosystem would have been better served if they killed support for Python 2 much earlier, so that we can avoid wasting time on this tired debate, and more time writing useful code
Making the transition more "progressive" would just decrease the incentive of developers and companies to move even more.
Ultimately, they are the ones who maintain, care for Python and have grown the community to its current size. I totally respect their decision. Even if py3 was complete useless, I would just stop using python, not complain about how they are not doing things the way I like it.
What would you do in 2.8, 2.9 that 2.6, 2.7 didn't achieve? 3.0 was released almost at the same time as 2.6, and together with 2.7 they got a lot of backported 3.x functionality. Sounds like what you're asking for.
Pretty much the only people that are working towards splitting the community are people like you, who spread FUD and sprinkle snide, bitter and wrong remarks across threads.
Notice how I made a pragmatic observation (that it's already a fork), which one might agree or disagree with, and you went for name-calling about FUD, snide, bitter, "people like you", etc.
That's, like I said, my general observation from reading like a dozen comments from you just on this item. You're literally bickering on about this in pretty much every Python-related item on HN. It is very hard not to notice your comments if one frequents this site. I stand by my comment above.
>You're literally bickering on about this in pretty much every Python-related item on HN.
And others are bickering for the opposite opinion, so?
Did someone die and gave you authority on what others should think about Python 2 vs 3 transition?
>It is very hard not to notice your comments if one frequents this site.
I guess tolerating the presence of a counter opinion is hard.
That said, it's a open discussion, and the comments are not directed at you in any way. Maybe skip them if they upset you?
The problem is that Python 2 cannot evolve freely alongside Python 3, because even if someone wants to maintain it and keep releasing versions, the Python Software Foundation won't let them use the name Python (there was a post some weeks ago about someone who actually tried). So there is no free competition between 2 and 3. 2 has been basically killed by a decision from above.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Python 3 hater. In fact, I have some projects in Python 3 and I would leave Python 2 if I could. But I, like many people, have to code stuff that has dependencies on Python 2, and the way they have handled the update bothers us for no good reason. In fact, the whole schism fiasco is making me use less Python and more Java, where my stone-age code still runs, lately.
Python 3 is not a fork. It is a major release. A continuation of the same language, by the same people, with very little change in the core concepts. A major release with some backward incompatibilities doesn't constitute a fork.
The previous version is being sunsetted, as is common for legacy software. By the time 2.7 is EOL'd, it will have enjoyed a decade of active development and maintenance. That's just one version of Python.
If there were a compelling enough argument for a fork, it would happen and a new name would be chosen. But alas, it makes very little sense for the wider world.
It's not difficult to write software that works with Python 2 and 3. It's just becoming less and less worth it, as evident by announcements like this Django 2.0 one. The scales have tipped towards Python 3.
The Python Software Foundation are the people who have earned the reputation that the name "Python" has - they're the ones who get to use it. And their judgement is that Python 3 is the future of Python. A fork under a different name can earn its own reputation based on the technical merits of its decisions.
The reason you have a trademark is to enforce rights to the name and prevent confusion. If suddenly Python 2.8 would appear it would be easily confused for official release. If it had flaws they often would also land on the official release.
That's why if you want to make a fork you're free to do so, but you need to make a different name. If it's something people desire it will be used, you can't just ride on the popularity of the name. If your fork has different name and is not popular, it means that there was not much interest in it, period.
You already have Python 2. This is a continuation of it that is simply closer in semantic to Python 3. How could it be bad if apart from the Unicode semantics the two versions became equivalent?
Py2 or PyClassic. They don't own those, and they sure could link to python to py2/PyClassic for people who want to install it. They don't own the letters py.
