Martijn Faassen: The Call of Python 2.8

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2014 04:33:24 -0400, Terry Reedy wrote:

> On 4/15/2014 2:08 AM, Ben Finney wrote:
>> Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:
>>
>>> The 'mistake' is your OS, whatever it is, not providing 3.3. It is
>>> already so old that it is off bugfix maintenance. Any decent system
>>> should have 3.4 available now.
>>
>> I think you mean “… should have Python 3.3 available now”, yes?
> 
> ??? why would you think that??? My installed 3.4.0 for Windows is dated
> March 16.


Was it provided by Microsoft as part of the OS?

Terry, while enthusiasm for the latest and greatest version of Python is 
a good thing, stability is also a good thing. Not everyone has the luxury 
of being able to jump on the upgrade treadmill and stay on it. If I 
recall correctly, Python 2.6 has just received its last security update 
from Python, but it will continue to receive them from Red Hat for a few 
more years. (Python 2.4 is still receiving security updates from Red Hat, 
and 2.7 will be receiving them until 2024.)

That stability is very valuable to some people -- that's why people use 
(e.g.) Debian, with its promises of multi-year stability, instead of 
Ubuntu, which goes through major version changes three times a week (or 
so sometimes it seems...) That failure to support 3.4 in the OS-provided 
system is not a mistake, it is a feature.


-- 
Steven