Python 3 is killing Python

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Steve Hayes <hayesstw at telkomsa.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 31 May 2014 13:09:45 +0200, Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb at gmx.de>
> wrote:
>
>>On 31.05.2014 12:07, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> So I bought this book, and decided that whatever version of Python it deals
>>> with, that's the one I will download and use.
>>
>>This sounds like remarkably bad advice. That's like saying "I bought a
>>can of motor oil in my department store and whatever engine that is good
>>for that's the car that I'll buy and put into!"
>
> No, it's a bit like flying in a Boeing 747 rather than a Concorde. The latyer
> may be later and more technically advanced and flew faster, but no one uses or
> supports it.

"Conky" is more like Python 1 - nobody uses it now (actually, there
are more people using Python 1.x than flying Concorde), but it had its
place in history.

You're flying in a 747-400, which is fine, but when I want to go to
England, I'd much rather go in a 777-300ER. (And yes, I've flown in
both. Can't remember what model Queenie was, but with the 777s it's
usually an Emirates 300ER.) The 747 is still functional, but no more
functional than its era, and life's a lot better with the newer
aircraft. If you want to start a brand new airline, you won't go for
747s if you can get 777s and A380s for the same price. For those who
have 747s in their fleet, there's no problem - there'll be spare parts
available from the manufacturer until at least donkey's years, and
even after that, you can probably get third-party spare parts from
some ex-Soviet mob (at least, they must be Soviets, why else would
they wear red hats?); but you'll only get the features that were in
the 747s when they were built, plus maybe some minor upgrades to the
ancillary bits and pieces. Sure, you can get some of the fancy
interior pieces that were designed for the 777s (enum, for instance),
but the main hull isn't changing.

So if you want to start a one-man airline (where you're managing the
company, flying the plane, and everything else), do you start by
looking at the relative merits of the 747-400 and 777-300ER and
choosing, or do you poke around in your local second-hand shop for
"Learn To Fly A Jet In Twenty-Four Hours" and see which cockpit it's
showing photos of? There are courses for both types; both aircraft
come with excellent "quick start" guides (see
https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/ and
https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/ ); and everything you want to ask
about either type can be answered by the team of
Boeing-List at Boeing.Org people, any hour of the day or night. All
you're doing is picking your technology on the basis of *one*
dead-tree book that you happen to have found. Is that really the most
important deciding point?

ChrisA