[Python-Dev] Python 3.0.1

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

"Martin v. Löwis" writes:

 > > Don't take the word "experimental" too seriously.  What is meant
 > > is an explicit announcement that the stability rules will be
 > > relaxed for the 3.0.x series *only*.
 > 
 > The name for that shouldn't be "experimental", though. I don't think
 > it needs any name at all.

That's what I meant.  I'm sure that whoever wrote the word
"experimental" in the first place regrets it, because it doesn't
reflect what they meant.

 > > I think that the important question is "can the 3.0.x series be made
 > > 'viable' in less than the time frame for 3.1?"  If not, I really have
 > > to think it's DOA from the point of view of folks who consider 3.0.0
 > > non-viable.  I think that's what Barry and Martin are saying.
 > 
 > DOA == dead on arrival? I don't think Python 3.0 is dead.

I'm sorry, DOA was poor word choice, especially this context.  I meant
that people who currently consider 3.0 non-viable are more likely to
focus on the branch that will become 3.1 unless a "viable" 3.0.x will
arrive *very* quickly.

 > That is fairly abstract. What specific bugs in Python 3.0 are you
 > talking about?

I'm not talking about specific bugs; I'm perfectly happy with 3.0 for
my purposes, and I think it very unlikely that any of the possibly
destabilizing changes that have been proposed for 3.0.1 will affect
me adversely.

Rather, I'm trying to disentangle some of the unfortunate word choices
that have been made (and I apologize for making one of my own!), and
find common ground so that a policy can be set more quickly.

IMO it's likely that there's really no audience for a 3.0.x series
that conforms to the rules used for 2.x from 2.2.1 or so on.  That is,
there are people who really don't care because 3.0 is already a better
platform for their application whether there are minor changes or not,
and there are people who do care about stability but they're not going
to use 3.0.x whether it adheres to the previous rules strictly or not.
There are very few who will use 3.0.x if and only if it adheres strictly.