[Numpy-discussion] question about future support for python-3

[David Cournapeau]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 4:21 AM, Darren Dale<dsdale24 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not a core numpy developer and don't want to step on anybody's
> toes here. But I was wondering if anyone had considered approaching
> the Python Software Foundation about support to help get numpy working
> with python-3?

I already gave my own opinion on py3k, which can be summarized as:
  - it is a huge effort, and no core numpy/scipy developer has
expressed the urge to transition to py3k, since py3k does not bring
much for scientific computing.
  - very few packages with a significant portion of C have been ported
to my knowledge, hence very little experience on how to do it. AFAIK,
only small packages have been ported. Even big, pure python projects
have not been ported. The only big C project to have been ported is
python itself, and it broke compatibility and used a different source
tree than python 2.
  - it remains to be seen whether we can do the py3k support in the
same source tree as the one use for python >= 2.4. Having two source
trees would make the effort even much bigger, well over the current
developers capacity IMHO.

The only area where I could see the PSF helping is the point 2: more
documentation, more stories about 2->3 transition.

cheers,

David