[Python-Dev] email package status in 3.X

[Tres Seaver]

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Jesse Noller wrote:
> 
> On Jun 19, 2010, at 10:13 AM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:

>>> Nothing is set in stone; if something is incredibly painful, or worse
>>> yet broken, then someone needs to file a bug, bring it to this list,
>>> or bring up a patch.
>> Or walk away.
>>
> 
> Ok. If you want.

I specifically said I *didn't* want to walk away.  I'm pointing out that
in the general case, the ordinary user who finds something incredibly
painful or broken is far more likely to walk away from the platform than
try to fix it, especially if there are available alternatives (e.g.,
Ruby, Python 2) where the pain level for that user's application is lower.

>>> I guess tutorial welcome, rather than patch welcome then ;)
>> The only folks who can write the tutorial are the ones who have  
>> already drunk the koolaid.  Note that I've been making my living with Python  
>> for about twelve years now, and would *like* to use Python3, but can't,  
>> yet, and therefore haven't taken the first sip.
> 
> Why can't you? Is it a bug?

It's not *a* bug, it is that I do my day to day work on very large
applications which depend on a large number of not-yet-ported libraries.
 This barrier is the negative "network effect" which is the whole point
of this thread:  there is nothing wrong with Python3 except that, to use
it, I have to stop doing the work which pays to do an
indeterminately-large amount of "hobby" work (of which I already do
quite a lot).

> Let's file it and fix it. Is it that you  
> need a dependency ported?

I need dozens of them ported, and am working on some of them in the
aforementioned "copious spare time."

> Cool - let's bring it up to the maintainers,  
> or this list, or ask the PSF to push resources into helping port.  
> Anything but nothing.

Nothing is the default:  I am already successful with Python 2, and
can't be successfulwith Python 3 (in the sense of delivering timely,
cost-effective solutions to my customers) until *all* those dependencies
are ported and stable there.

> If what you're saying is that python 3 is a completely unsuitable  
> platform, well, then yeah - we can all "fix" it or walk away.

I didn't say that:  I said that Python 3 is unsuitable *today* for the
work I'm doing, and that the relative wins it provides over Python 2 are
dwarfed by the effort required to do all those ports myself.

>>>> IOW, 3.x has broken TOOOWTDI for me in some areas.  There may
>>>> be obvious ways to do it, but, as per the Zen of Python, "that
>>>> way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch".  ;-)

OT:  The Dutch smiley there doesn't actually help anything but undercut
any point to having TOOOWTDI in the list at all.

>>> What areas. We need specifics which can either be:
>>>
>>> 1> Shot down.
>>> 2> Turned into bugs, so they can be fixed
>>> 3> Documented in the core documentation.

>> That's bloody ironic in a thread which had pointed at reasons why  
>> people are not even considering Py3 for their projects:  those folks won't  
>> even find the issues due to the lack of confidence in the suitability of  
>> the platform.
> 
> What I saw was a thread about some issues in email, and cgi. We have  
> some work being done to address the issue. This will help resolve some  
> of the issues.
> 
> If there are other issues, then we should step up and either help, or  
> get out ofthe way. Arguing about the viability of a platform we knew  
> would take a bit for adoption is silly and breeds ill will.

I'm not arguing about viability:  there are obviously users for whom
Python 3 is not only viable, but superior to Python 2.  However, I am
quite confident that many pro-Python 3 folks arguing here underestimate
the scope of the issues which have generated the (self-fullfilling) "not
yet" perception.

> It's not a turd, and it's not hopeless, in fact rumor has it NumPy  
> will be ported soon which is a major stepping stone.

Sure, for the (far from trivial) subset of the community doing numerical
work.

> The only way to counteract this meme that python 3 is horribly  
> broken is to prove that it's not, fix bugs, and move on. There's no  
> point debating relative turdiness here.

Any "turdiness" (which I am *not* arguing for) is a natural consequence
of the kinds of backward incompatibilities which were *not* ruled out
for Python 3, along with the (early, now waning) "build it and they will
 come" optimism about adoption rates.



Tres.
- --
===================================================================
Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
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