the Gravity of Python 2

[Steven D'Aprano]

Martijn Faassen wrote:

> Hey,
> 
> I'm pointing out possible improvements that Python 2.8 could offer that
> would help incremental porting efforts of applications. I'm pointing
> about that helping application developers move forward incrementally may
> be a worthwhile consideration. Like, there's money there.

Why don't you grab it? If you think people will pay for somebody to backport
Python 3 to Python 2.8, just go ahead and do it and rake the money in.
Python is open source, you don't have to ask anyone's permission. The only
thing you may not be able to do is call it "Python 2.8", but the name isn't
important.


> You can point out that 2.6 and 2.7 were already such releases, and I
> will then point out that many people *have* upgraded their applications
> to these releases. Is there now going to be a giant leap forward to
> Python 3 by these projects, or is the jump still too far? Opinions differ.

It's not a giant leap. 95% of the migration can be handled by a relatively
simple script, 2to3. The hardest part is supporting 2 *and* 3 in a single
project, but for end-user applications that target a single Python version,
rather than libraries and frameworks that target many different versions,
migrating is a once-off cost, and for most apps, not a large one.

Certainly much less than re-writing the app in another language.



-- 
Steven