RELEASED Python 2.6a1 and 3.0a3

[Terry Reedy]

"Tim Roberts" <timr at probo.com> wrote in message 
news:ir5ns3purngj4kt4ndpptqnqm5pj628qbj at 4ax.com...
| Kay Schluehr <kay.schluehr at gmx.net> wrote:
| >"The master said so" isn't an entirely satisfying answer.
|
| Nevertheless, it IS the answer for many questions in the Python world.

But not for the questions about 2to3

Current 2to3 is written in Py2.5 and will require the 2.5 interpreter until 
2.6 is sufficiently stable to run it.  Whether it will  later use 2.6 
features or not I do not know.

I believe that pre-2.6 code will be directly upgradable if
A. it does not depend on bugs that are fixed by 2.6,
     so that it is also 2.6 code;
B. one is willing to do the upgrade more or less 'all at once',
   (while the code is frozen);
C. one is willing to do *one* of the following:
  C1. keep the 2.x code frozen, or
  C2. redo the upgrade more or less 'from scratch' after base code edits, 
or
  C3. maintain the 2.x code and 3.0 code in parallel

These are facts of programming life, not BDFL edicts.  But many will prefer 
an incremental approach.

Py 2.6 will ease this by 1) optionally issuing upgrade warnings, and 2) 
incorporating many new 3.0 features that do not conflict with 2.x features.

tjr