myths about python 3

[Aahz]

In article <pan.2010.01.28.00.35.41 at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au>,
Steven D'Aprano  <steven at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:25:46 -0500, Benjamin Kaplan wrote:
>>
>> When Python 2.6 came out, Jython was still on 2.2. The difference
>> between 2.2 and 2.6 is almost as big of a difference as between 2.6 and
>> 3.0. In that time, you had the introduction of the boolean type,
>> generators, list comprehensions, the addition of the "yield" and "with"
>> keywords, universal newline support, and decorators in addition to the
>> large number of changes to the standard library such as the introduction
>> of the subprocess module.
>
>I believe that, with the possible exception of the change from byte 
>strings to unicode strings, virtually *all* the hoo-har over Python 3 is 
>simply due to the tactical mistake of Guido and the Python Dev team of 
>*calling* Python 3 a backward incompatible release. Python has had 
>previous major changes in the past (e.g. 1.5 to 2.0 and 2.1 to 2.2) and 
>hardly anyone made a complaint.

But as Steven points out, the difference from 2.2 to 2.6 is roughly the
same as 2.6 to 3.1.  Python has never before had such a large difference
from one release to the next, and I think few people try to support
serious apps on the full range from 2.2 to 2.6.  Moreover, the task of
using a single codebase without 2to3 is much easier in 1.4 through 2.6.

Admittedly, it wouldn't be much fun to write 1.4 code these days without
all the neat features that have been added, but you can't argue that it's
hard.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

import antigravity