Inconsistencies between zipfile and tarfile APIs

[Terry Reedy]

On 7/22/2011 5:17 PM, Ned Deily wrote:
> In article<j0cjaf$mum$1 at dough.gmane.org>,
>   Terry Reedy<tjreedy at udel.edu>  wrote:
>> This introduced the problem that upgrading to Python 3 is no longer a
>> single thing. We really need 2to3.1 (the current 2to3), 2to3.2, 2to3.3,
>> etc, but someone would have to make the new versions, but no one,
>> currently, has the energy and interest to do that. So people who did not
>> port their 2.x code early now use the problem of multiple Python 3
>> targets as another excuse not to do so now. (Actually, most 2.x code
>> should not be ported, but their are more libraries that we do need in 3.x.)

The above should be taken as reporting, accurate or not, rather than 
advocacy.

> I don't quite understand this.  Since 2to3 is included with Python 3,
> there are, in fact, separate releases of 2to3 for each release of Python
> 3 so far.

To the best of my knowledge, 2to3 is not being adjusted on a per-release 
basis. I am for doing this, but as I remember, there was some opposition 
when the question was discussed on py-dev. If I am wrong, I would be 
glad to be corrected.

 > And, unlike with Python 2 with a large installed base across
> a number of versions, Python 3 version support can be and is much more
> focused now in its early releases.  Support for 3.0 was terminated
> immediately upon release of 3.1.  And 3.1 is now in security-fix mode
> only.  So, except for a brief overlap after the initial release of 3.2,
> there has only been one Python 3 release that needs to be targeted.  Of
> course, that will change over time as adoption continues and mainstream
> OS's include specific Python 3 releases.  But, for now, it's easy: just
> target the most recent Python 3 release, currently 3.2.1.  Don't worry
> about earlier releases.

That would be my attitude too. I would hope that most of the major 
library are available for 3.2 before 3.3 is out. There there would only 
be the normal minor adjustments for code that happens to hit the new 
deprecations.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy