[Python-Dev] Spreading the Python 3 religion (was Re: PEP 414 - Unicode Literals for Python 3)

[Nick Coghlan]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
> martin at v.loewis.de writes:
>
>  > One thing that the PEP will certainly achieve is to spread the myth that
>  > you cannot port to Python 3 if you also want to support Python 2.5. That's
>  > because people will accept the "single source" approach as the one right way,
>  > and will accept that this only works well with Python 2.6.
>
> Please, Martin, I dislike this idea as much as you do.  (There was no
> -1 from me, though, because I don't work in the context of the claimed
> use cases at all, but lots of people obviously find them persuasive.)
>
> But in respect of myth-spreading, the problem with the PEP is the
> polemic tone.  (Yeah, I've seen Armin's claim that it's not polemic.
> I disagree.)  The unqualified claims that "2to3 is insufficient" and
> the PEP will "enable side-by-side support" of Python 2 and Python 3 by
> libraries are too extreme, and really unnecessary in light of Guido's
> logic for acceptance.

FWIW, I agree that much of the rhetoric in the current version of PEP
414 is excessive.

Armin has given me permission to create an updated version of PEP 414
and toning down the hyperbole (or removing it entirely in cases where
it's irrelevant to the final decision) is one of the things that I
will be changing. I also plan to add a link to Lennart's guide to the
various porting strategies that are currently available, more clearly
articulate the cases where the new approach can most help (i.e. when
there are project specific reasons to avoid the unicode_literals
import), as well as name drop Pyramid (Chris McDonough), Flask
(Armin), Django (Jacob Kaplan-Moss) and requests (Kenneth Reitz) as
cases where key developers of web-related third party frameworks or
libraries have indicated that PEP 414 will help greatly with bringing
the sections of the Python ecosystem they're involved with into the
Python 3 fold over the next few years.

My aim is for the end result to better reflect the reasons why Guido
*accepted* the PEP, moreso than Armin's own reasons for *wanting* it.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia