backward compatibility?

[Ville Vainio]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Kleiweg <in.aqua.scribis at nl.invalid> writes:

    Peter> So how serious are plans to remove things from Python, like
    Peter> lambda and map and reduce? I am just starting out with Python

Not very. Talking about it is mostly a way to steer newbies away from
them towards superior approaches (list comprehensions and generator
expressions). Even if the features were removed, they could be
trivially implemented by yourself in python so none of your code would
break. Well, noe lambda but I don't believe it will be removed - too
much code depends on it.

    Peter> and if there is a danger that the programs I write today
    Peter> won't work next year, I rather invest my time in another
    Peter> language. I might try Ruby, or stick with Perl.

Well, if you care about running your code on the new interpreters few
years from now (nobody is going to force you to upgrade - some poor
tossers still use python 1.5.2), Python is the best bet from the
languages you mention. Ruby is going to break compatibility big time
soon (or so I've heard - big rewrite or sth), and perl is going
through the perl6 pains. Python is extremely cautious about breaking
backwards compatibility, sometimes even too cautious for my taste...

-- 
Ville Vainio   http://tinyurl.com/2prnb