Why has python3 been created as a seperate language where there is still python2.7 ?

John Nagle nagle at animats.com
Tue Jun 26 17:08:43 EDT 2012


On 6/25/2012 1:36 AM, Stefan Behnel wrote:
> gmspro, 24.06.2012 05:46:
>> Why has python3 been created as a seperate language where there is still python2.7 ?

> The intention of Py3 was to deliberately break backwards compatibility in
> order to clean up the language. The situation is not as bad as you seem to
> think, a huge amount of packages have been ported to Python 3 already
> and/or work happily with both language dialects.

     The syntax changes in Python 3 are a minor issue for
serious programmers.  The big headaches come from packages that
aren't being ported to Python 3 at all.  In some cases, there's
a replacement package from another author that performs the
same function, but has a different API.  Switching packages
involves debugging some new package with, probably, one
developer and a tiny user community.

     The Python 3 to MySQL connection is still a mess.
The original developer of MySQLdb doesn't want to support
Python 3.  There's "pymysql", but it hasn't been updated
since 2010 and has a long list of unfixed bugs.
There was a "MySQL-python-1.2.3-py3k" port by a third party,
but the domain that hosted it 
("http://www.elecmor.mooo.com/python/MySQL-python-1.2.3-py3k.zip") is 
dead.  There's
MySQL for Python 3 (https://github.com/davispuh/MySQL-for-Python-3)
but it doesn't work on Windows.  MySQL Connector
(https://code.launchpad.net/myconnpy) hasn't been updated in a
while, but at least has some users.  OurSQL has a different
API than MySQLdb, and isn't quite ready for prime time yet.

     That's why I'm still on Python 2.7.

				John Nagle



More information about the Python-list mailing list