Why are so many shorts in a knot? Was: Do you QA your Python?

[maxx at easynews.com]

There seems to be an enormous amount of F.U.D. lately about the regular new
versions of Python. I am curious to know what environment these upset
individuals work within that do not undergo regular and constant change?

In my career, I have NEVER had the opportunity to believe, "This tool is
perfect, and needs no further changes." Sometimes, new features are released,
and I can choose to use them or not. Sometimes, updates are released to support
new operating system versions. Sometimes, very useful and valuable tools (to
me), are simply abandoned by the developer. The only thing I have been able to
depend on, is that I will have to expend significant effort to keep pace with
the industry.

Why should Python be any different? Every commercially successful language,
database, or operating systems I can think of gets regular updates. Sometimes
they are good for our projects, sometimes not. Sometimes we can ignore the
upgrades, sometimes we have modify systems to meet the new requirements. The
interesting thing is that I am certain that some time ago, some discussions were
made about why Python was still in a 1.X version, since IT Managers do not trust
such a "young" language.

Of course I may have forgotten one law of human nature - No matter what you do
(or do not do), someone will feel the need to complain about it.