Using alpha software in production [was Re: Trying tcompile an use the Python 3.4a]

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> Yes, this! A master craftsman knows when to break the rules. I personally
> would not run a public web app using alpha software because I know my
> limitations...

+1. Plenty of people know that a master knows when to break the
rules... the flip side is that a master also knows when NOT to break
the rules. I'll run a trunk build of Pike, and I might of Python, but
I wouldn't run a pre-alpha version of Apache, nor of the Linux kernel,
nor pretty much anything else on my system. That is, not in
production. There are all sorts of things that I'll happily do in a
VM, where the consequences of totally hosing the system are "Oh dear,
now I have to restore from a snapshot". :)

For what it's worth, I've been running 3.4 builds for a while - not in
production, but only because my production box is actually a rather
ancient and very stable machine and I have no reason yet to change
anything. It's looking fairly good, but I'd say the change from 3.3 to
3.4 is a lot less exciting for me than the change from 3.2 to 3.3.
(Though asyncio may invert that valuation, once I dig into it enough
to find out how fun it is.)

ChrisA