Will Python 3.x ever become the actual standard?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:57:25 -0700, dufriz wrote:

> I am starting to have doubts as to whether Python 3.x will ever be
> actually adopted by the Python community at large as their standard.

Of course it will. Python 2.7 is the last of the 2 series. It will be 
given extended support, but eventually -- probably another five years or 
so -- it will be no longer supported, just like Python 1.5 is no longer 
supported.


> Years have passed, and a LARGE number of Python programmers has not even
> bothered learning version 3.x.

It's not like the differences are hard to learn. Even a mediocre 
programmer can learn the differences in semantics and syntax in about 
five minutes -- if you remember "print is a function", you're about half-
way there. Differences to the standard library are more extensive, but 
still easy to learn.


> Why am I bothered by this? Because of lot
> of good libraries are still only for version 2.x, and there is no sign
> of their being updated for v3.x.

What do you call a "lot"? A million? Ten? 

> I get the impression as if 3.x, despite
> being better and more advanced than 2.x from the technical point of
> view, is a bit of a letdown in terms of adoption.

Don't panic, the plan was always that the migration from 2 to 3 would 
take about a decade. We're only half-way through it, and the migration is 
proceeding according to plan:

- the majority of packages on PyPI now support Python 3, so the
  "Wall of Shame" is now renamed the "Wall of Superpowers":

  https://python3wos.appspot.com/

- big, important projects like numpy, scipy, django, zope, docutils etc.
  now have either full Python 3 support, partial support, or are actively
  working on it

- As of June this year, 39 of the top 50 downloaded projects from PyPI 
  had Python 3 support:

  http://py3ksupport.appspot.com/

- It's not just CPython, other implementations like Nuitika, PyPy and
  Cython have partial or full support for Python 3.


So don't worry about it.


-- 
Steven