What do you do when a library is outdated?

[Matt]

On Monday, July 29, 2013 12:34:08 PM UTC-4, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 5:14 PM, Matt <mattgraves7 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I'm fairly new to python but have experience in other languages. What do you generally do when a library is outdated? I asked a question on a few forums and everyone has been pointing me to Mechanize, but it will not work with 3.3
> 
> >
> 
> > What do you do?
> 
> 
> 
> Depends what you mean by "outdated". Lots of things don't _need_ to be
> 
> up-to-date to be useful, and often, using the very latest version of
> 
> something just makes it hard to deploy (look at Debian and Red Hat,
> 
> both of which maintain support for a long time). If there's actually a
> 
> problem with something not being able to cope with current systems (eg
> 
> something that's designed to communicate with Windows and can't talk
> 
> to Win 8), then you go looking for a replacement package that can use
> 
> the latest, or possibly you write it yourself.
> 
> 
> 
> But my crystal ball tells me you're not asking about that, but rather
> 
> about a module that was written for Python 2 and hasn't been ported to
> 
> Python 3. (Usually there won't be other issues; if something breaks
> 
> between Py3.2 and Py3.3, it'll be easily fixed.) There are a few
> 
> options:
> 
> 
> 
> 1) Talk to the author/maintainer. Explain that you want to use his/her
> 
> code with Python 3 but can't. Often, the only reason something isn't
> 
> ported is because of a perceived lack of interest.
> 
> 2) Run the module code through the 2to3 utility. That might even be
> 
> all you need to do.
> 
> 3) Port it yourself. Start with 2to3, and then work through any
> 
> problems you have. I would recommend getting to know the module on
> 
> Python 2 first, so you have a chance of knowing what it ought to be
> 
> doing.
> 
> 
> 
> You aren't the first to inquire about this. A quick Google search for
> 
> 'mechanize python 3' brought this up:
> 
> http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~adevore/mechanize/
> 
> 
> 
> Also, poking around a bit shows recommendations for the lxml and
> 
> requests modules, which may be able to do what you want.
> 
> 
> 
> So to answer your general question: Work, sometimes lots of work
> 
> (though not always). But for Mechanize specifically, Requests may be
> 
> your best bet.
> 
> 
> 
> ChrisA

I appreciate this. I did not know of 2to3, and I am going to give that a shot right now. Thank you!