PEP0238 lament

[Bjorn Pettersen]

> From: Guido van Rossum [mailto:guido at python.org]
[snip]
> 
> (1) A very long wait period before the new division becomes the
>     default.  The PPE mentions at least two years; we can go over
>     that.  Python 2.2 will introduce the first release where it's
>     *possible* to write "from __future__ import division"; we'll have
>     to wait until 1.5.2 is only a faint memory (like 1.4 is now) and
>     2.2 pretty old.  (The current release pace is two revisions per
>     year, so two years would make 2.6 the first release where new
>     division is the default.)

Thanks for taking the time to address these issues. I agree your
proposed three steps would go a long way towards easing any
compatibility concerns. I have one request though... make the first
release where the new division is the default be named 3.0. It's much
easier to go to management and say "There's a new stable major release
of Python that I think we should go to, but since it's a major release
I'll need to spend some time testing our current applications."
Management tends to be much less willing to schedule maintenance time
every six months for what they consider minor point releases.

If there was to be a scheduled 3.0 release, any other source
incompatible changes that were seen as important would also have a
natural place to go.

-- bjorn