Noob in Python. Problem with fairly simple test case

[Rick Johnson]

On Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 9:44:56 PM UTC-5, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> [...] My take from all this is that overall, Python 3
> take-up is probably > around 10% of all Python users,

All that rambling just to agree with me? My educated guess
is a minimum of 75% still using Python2.x. But i'll take
your 90% because it makes my argument stronger! O:-D

> but it's the most influential 10%: newbies learning Python
> 3 at school, the people chatting about Python on the
> Internet, writing blog posts and answering questions on
> Stackoverflow. Furthermore, there's probably another 30%
> who *want* to use Python 3 but cannot due to company
> policy. In my day job, I fall into that category: the
> company I work for use Python as their main language for
> our flagship application, and by policy we're stuck with
> using the default Python on Debian jessie, which is 2.6.
> The numbers of people actively hostile to Python 3 is
> probably less than 10%.

Well i'm not "actively hostile" to py3 by any means, i just
can't risk the upgrade at this time. Perhaps in another five
years or so i might change my mind. But then, in another
five years, something more interesting might come along and
sweep me off my feet. Who knows, I'm a sucker for romance.

> The take-up rate of Python 3 is about where we would
> expect after less than seven years:

Well, that's one way of coping with it. I know a lot of
folks worked hard to get Python3 up and running, but they
need to realize that these sort of transitions take time.
Heck, there is always the possibility that Python3 never
gets any real traction. Until it's usage reaches 50%, it's
only spinning tires in the mud, digging a deeper hole.

Not to mention the elephant in the room: We have been moving
towards mobile and cloud ubiquity, and this trend is not
going to stop. If Python wants to survive it had better
start adapting, and adapting fast. If not, it shall become
just another forgotten language relegated to obscurity
within the dark corners of academia.