the Gravity of Python 2

[Mark Lawrence]

On 08/01/2014 14:15, Roy Smith wrote:
> As somebody who is still firmly in the 2.x world, I'm worried about the
> idea of a 2.x fork.  While I have my doubts that 3.x was a good idea,
> the fact is, it's here.  Having the community fractured between the two
> camps is not good.  Let's say I'm somebody who wants to contribute some
> OSS.  I have three basic choices:
>
> 1) I can make it 3.x only.  Now, (nominally) half of the python
> community is unable to realize value from my contribution.
>
> 2) I can make it 2.x only.  Same thing in reverse.
>
> 3) I can make it work on both 2.x and 3.x, which means I'm investing
> more effort than I had to if it were single platform.
>
> Any of those alternatives is worse than ideal.  Forking 2.x to create an
> unofficial 2.8 release would just prolong the situation.  As I've stated
> before, I don't see any urgency in moving to 3.x, and don't imagine
> doing there for another couple of years, but I absolutely can't imagine
> moving to a 2.8 fork.
>

The above strikes me as common sense.  Surely that's out of place on 
this list? :)

But to be serious why not stick with 2.x if there's no compelling reason 
to move?  Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?  And 
before anyone says anything please don't start on about the bytes versus 
string debate, I'm fairly certain that there are a substantial number of 
application areas that don't run into these problems.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask 
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence