Newbie question - probably FAQ (but not exactly answered by regular FAQ)

[Banibrata Dutta]

On 5/6/08, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bruno.42.desthuilliers at websiteburo.invalid> wrote:
> Nick Craig-Wood a écrit :
> > Banibrata Dutta <banibrata.dutta at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >  I've gone through the list of "language differences" between 2.3 / 2.4
> > >  & 2.5 of CPython. I've spend around 2 weeks now, learning v2.5 of
> > >  CPython, and I consider myself still very very newbie. So, unable to
> > >  take a call as to how-important or desirable the newer language
> > >  features are -- so whether to write my app for v2.5 of Python, versus,
> > >  as few others on this list have recommended, i.e. to stick to v2.3 ??
> > >  Are the preformance improvements, and memory footprint / leak fix in
> > >  2.5 enough to justify moving to it ? What all do I stand to lose (or
> > >  gain) by writing on v2.3 ??
> > >
> >
> > If you are writing for 2.3 you are writing for 2.4 and 2.5 also.
> >
> > There are some nice things in 2.4 and 2.5 but nothing you really need
> > IMHO.
> >
>
> There are some nice things in Python but nothing you really need neither -
> could have the same result in C or assembly !-)
>
> <OP>
> Ok, if you're newbie to programming, the new stuff in 2.4 and 2.5 might not
> be that useful to you right now. But the real question is mostly: do you
> have any reason to stick to 2.3 ?
> </OP>

Newbie to Python yes, not to programming. But does that change
anything -- i.e. to impact my decision ?

> > >  I've a constraint due to which I might have to also write parts of my
> > >  app (client side) in Jython (because I want to eventually ship Java --
> > >  yet benefit from the rapid development and clarity of Python). Would
> > >  sticking to v2.3 in such a case be a better idea ? Suggestions with
> > >  reasoning would be very helpful.
> > >
> >
> > Jython seems to be based off python 2.2
> >
>
> It is so far. But Sun recently hired Jython's maintainers, so we may have a
> much more up to date Jython version in a foreseeable future.

Well, I need to start somewhere, and I want that "somewhere" to be a
decent-enough point.  :-)

As such 2.6 & 3.0 are also cooking, but from what I see on the mailing
list, some of the features are a bit controversial. So if I start with
2.5 now, unless there are some break-thru preformance gains, or
annoying defects fixed, I'd stick to it. If I can do something
"well-enough" with 2.5, I'd not refactor for 2.6, for quite some
fore-seeable future.