Python 3 is killing Python

[Ian Kelly]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Rick Johnson
<rantingrickjohnson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

When Python 2.0 was released, the majority of Python programmers at
the time had learned on Python 1.x, and for a while the majority of
them were still using 1.x. That's the same situation you're describing
today. At some point in the future, Python 2.x will be "ancient
history" also.

> 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

Seriously? If you ask me, the changes introduced in 2.2 were a lot
more significant than anything in 2.5. 2.2 fixed the type system by
giving us new-style classes. It also added the iterator interface,
introduced generators, and removed the distinction between int and
long. All of those things were huge. What did Python 2.5 add?
Conditional expressions and the with statement, both of which are
useful but not nearly as compelling.

> 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*.

Python 3.0 was released in 2008. I don't understand why you think the
buzz surrounding that would have occurred 5 years later.

> 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".

No, I have no idea what you're referring to. If Guido was talking more
about Python 3 in 2012 than at any time in the six years prior, then I
for one didn't notice.

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

Actually, the Wall of Superpowers is showing quite a lot of green these days.

https://python3wos.appspot.com/