2.7 beta 1

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:54:04 -0700, Mensanator wrote:

> On Apr 11, 11:53�am, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
> cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>> On Sat, 10 Apr 2010 21:08:44 -0700, Mensanator wrote:
>> >> > 3.x won't be adopted by developers until it's fixed. As of now,
>> >> > it's seriously broken and unsuitable for production.
>>
>> >> In what ways do you consider it broken?
>>
>> > Issue 8093. Remarkably, this apparently hasn't been noticed before.
>>
>> I think that tells you that it's an unimportant bug that doesn't really
>> effect many people much,
> 
> It affects  me ... a LOT.

I suspect you're exaggerating, but even if you're not, you are not the 
entire Python community. You stated that "3.x won't be adopted by 
developers until it's fixed". It sounds like what you really mean was 
"3.x won't be adopted by *me* until it's fixed".

3.x is already being adopted by developers. The two biggest factors 
slowing uptake of 3.x are: (1) lack of big libraries like numpy, and (2) 
that major Linux distros still ship with 2.6 or 2.5.



>> and a million miles from implying that Python 3.x is "seriously broken
>> and unsuitable for production".
> 
> Maybe because I'm a user, not a developer.

You write code. You use an Integrated DEVELOPMENT Environment. That makes 
you a developer.



>> > I expect 2.7 will be around for a long time.
>>
>> As reported on the bug tracker, this bug effects Python 2.7 as well.
>> It's possible this bug goes back to, what? Python 2.5? 2.4? 2.3? Older?
>> Who knows?
> 
> I can't imagine my not having noticed this before. It's plausible I
> might not have noticed the runaway processes, but the fact that I can't
> eject a USB drive would have been very obvious.

Have you tried to reproduce it on 2.6 or 2.5? Unless you actively try to 
reproduce it, you can't assume it doesn't occur.



>> http://bugs.python.org/issue8093#msg102818
>>
>> In any case, IDLE is one IDE out of many, and not really up to
>> professional quality -- it's clunky and ugly. It isn't Python, it is a
>> tool written in Python.
> 
> You have no idea what the cause is, yet you're certain that the symptom
> is confined to IDLE.

Certain? Of course not. But given an issue that is reported with a single 
application, which is more likely? That it is a bug in the language, or a 
bug in the application?

Even if it is a bug in the language, some fundamental failure of the 
underlying Python virtual machine or built-in objects, there are dozens 
of standard library modules, and thousands of third-party modules, that 
it doesn't affect.


> That's the kind of thinking that leads to such bugs in the first place.

Riiiight.



-- 
Steven