GvR Europython keynote described on lwn.net

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 3 Aug 2015 08:34 am, Rick Johnson wrote:

>> Just because company X is using 2.7, why does that mean
>> that *you* shouldn't using 3.x? Surely you should make
>> your own decision, based on your own needs.
> 
> It's not just *ANY* company Steven, it's Guido's freaking
> employer! That would imply that even GvR himself is not
> motivated enough by 3000 to fight for it's adoption. More
> evidence that py3000 is not ready for mass consumption.

No, it's evidence that *Dropbox* is not ready for Python 3.x. It tells you
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the suitability of Python 3.x for other companies
and other users.

Despite your earlier snarky comment about "reiterate", it is clear that you
still don't get it, so I'll say it again. There is nothing wrong with
individuals or companies choosing to stay with Python 2.7, or 2.6, or 2.5,
or 1.5, if it meets their needs. GvR doesn't need to "fight" for Python 3's
adoption.

He works for a company where, *right now*, a customised version of 2.7 meets
their needs. That doesn't mean that other companies aren't ready for 3.x,
and it doesn't mean that Dropbox aren't preparing for 3.x. They are.

You might think that they could just turn around tomorrow and say, "Right,
as of tomorrow we're using Python 3 for new projects", but that's not how
it works when you're a company running Python on hundreds, maybe thousands
of production servers, all of which will need to have Python replaced
*while running live* before the change over.


>> (For the record, Dropbox isn't using Python 2.7. They're
>> using a heavily customized private implementation of
>> Python based on, but not the same as, version 2.7.
>> Whatever benefits they get from using that, I can promise
>> that *you* will not be getting them from the vanilla
>> version of 2.7 available to the public.)
> 
> So what? If i had to guess, i would guess that the hacks are
> mostly to bring py3000 features to 2.7 

These would be the features of Python 3 that nobody needs and nobody wants
because Python 2 is good enough for everyone?

I wouldn't want to guess what the customizations do.



-- 
Steven