[Python-Dev] Python 3.0.1

[Barry Warsaw]

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On Jan 29, 2009, at 1:13 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> I'd like to find a middle ground. We can all agree that the users of
> 3.0 are a small minority compared to the 2.x users. Therefore I think
> we can bend the rules more than we have done for the recent 2.x
> releases. Those rules weren't always there (anyone remember the
> addition of bool, True and False to 2.2.1?). The rules were introduced
> for the benefit of our most conservative users -- people who introduce
> Python in an enterprise and don't want to find that they are forced to
> upgrade in six months.

Removing stuff that should have been removed is fine, and I'm even  
okay with bending the "should have been" definition.

> Frankly, I don't really believe the users for whom those rules were
> created are using 3.0 yet. Instead, I expect there to be two types of
> users: people in the educational business who don't have a lot of
> bridges to burn and are eager to use the new features; and developers
> of serious Python software (e.g. Twisted) who are trying to figure out
> how to port their code to 3.0. The first group isn't affected by the
> changes we're considering here (e.g. removing cmp or some obscure
> functions from the operator module). The latter group *may* be
> affected, simply because they may have some pre-3.0 code using old
> features that (by accident) still works under 3.0.

I mostly agree.  I'm also concerned about downstream consumers that  
may be distributing 3.0 and will have a different schedule for doing  
their upgrades.  What I really want to avoid is people having to do  
stuff like the ugliness to work around the 2.2.1 additions:

try:
     True
except NameError:
     True = 1
     False = 0

Barry

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