the Gravity of Python 2

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:36 PM, Martijn Faassen <faassen at startifact.com> wrote:
> Well, in the original article I argue that it may be risky for the Python
> community to leave the large 2.7 projects behind because they tend to be the
> ones that pay us in the end.
>
> I also argue that for those projects to move anywhere, they need a clear,
> blessed, official, as simple as possible, incremental upgrade path. That's
> why I argue for a Python 2.8.
>
> Pointing out the 'future' module is existence proof that further incremental
> steps could be taken on top of what Python 2.7 already does.

Yep, but suppose it were simply that the future module is blessed as
the official, simple, incremental upgrade path. That doesn't violate
PEP 404, it allows the future module to continue to be expanded
without worrying about the PSF's schedules (more stuff might be added
to it in response to Python 3.5, but this is all in the hands of
future's maintainer), and it should be relatively simple to produce an
installer that goes and grabs it.

I'm all in favour of changes that don't require core support :) Let's
see how much can be done without touching the Python language in any
way at all. Maybe it'll turn out that there's some tiny change to
Python that would facilitate a huge improvement in commonality, but we
won't know without first trying to solve the problem under the
restriction of "there will be no Py2.8".

As Mark Rosewater is fond of saying, restrictions breed creativity.
Can the porting community take the PEP 404 restriction and be creative
within it? I suspect it'll go a long way.

ChrisA