Python 3 is killing Python

[Rick Johnson]

On Tuesday, July 15, 2014 1:53:27 PM UTC-5, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> No software developer is obliged to support their software
> forever, especially if they are giving it away for free
> [...] Nobody but nobody is supporting Python 1.1 any more,
> no matter how many security holes it has.

Of course not, Python 1.1 is pre-1999, heck, it's so old i
cannot find a release date for it, and it's probably
completely useless in today's world

    BUT THAT IS NOT MY POINT!

What you fail to realize is that the *MAJORITY* of Python
programmers cut their teeth on the Python 2.x line, and as
such, the majority of today's Python programmers are still
using the Python 2.x line -- anything to with Python 1.1
might as well be ancient history, it's irrelevant due to age
and it's abysmal utilization.

Python's popularity started increasing significantly only
*AFTER* Python 2 was rolled out. If you look at the TIOBE
stats (2003-2013), Python made the *MOST* improvements in
the years of 2007 and 2013

    PYTHON-2.0.1 WAS RELEASED ON JUNE 22, 2001

But nothing *significant* happened until Python-2.5

    PYTHON-2.5.0 WAS RELEASED ON SEPT. 19, 2006
    
Which coincides with the spike of 2007!

Now begs the question, what caused the 2013 spike? Simple,
the 2013 spike was a result of all the *BUZZ* of Python-3000,
NOT *BECAUSE* OF PYTHON-3000, but, because of the *BUZZ*.

Remember, GvR went on an extensive campaign to sale this
"new and improved" snake oil, with all his Google speeches
and evangelizing and whatnot. But very quickly the
"curiosity" and "excitement" turned into the "summer of
discontent".

I remember watching some speeches where the audience was not
at all pleased with the breaks and "great new
functionality".

The blogisphere has been set ablaze with bemoaning of
breaking code over such "miniscule" things as lazy
iterators, print, input,etc... and the misguided attempts to
"sanitize" Python of functional programming!
    
    SHOULD I DRAW YOU A "MAP"?
    
I think we can all agree that the roll out of Python3 was
not as "smooth" as the dictator has expected

Also, keep in mind that most of the tutorials and books out
there are written for Python 2.x, whereas Python 3.x is very
limited[1]. Too many noobs have downloaded Python3 and
whilst unwittingly following a "Googled tutorial" or book,
get hammered with esoteric exception messages and then
quickly give up and move on to another language, unaware
that the versions are incompatible in many respects.

Kind of sad when you realize that most of the functions that
were broken are the same functions a noob is using during "day
one" (print, input, etc...)

2.x also has years and years of *MATURE* third party modules
for the taking, whereas Python 3.x is quite disappointing[1].

> Python 2.7 is open source software, if you think that
> there is a market for providing support for it for the
> next twenty years, go right ahead

There *WILL* be a market for Python for the next ten or so
years no matter what happens to Python3! Since the vast
majority of Python code (in the wild) is written in the 2.x
line (most likely written using Python-2.5), python-3000 was
a lame duck before it was even released!

    print("QUACK!")


[1]: yes, yes, i know there are 3.x resources but no where even
     close to 2.x!