Python 2 to 3 conversion - embrace the pain

[Mario Figueiredo]

On Sun, 15 Mar 2015 19:43:38 -0400, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:

>
>The big problem continues to be the legacy projects.  People made 
>decisions years ago about what packages to use, and those decisions are 
>hard to get away from.  There is a lot of production code out there 
>which still uses third-party packages that are effectively abandonware 
>by now.  But the code still runs, and there's little incentive to mess 
>with it.  Rather than migrate to p3, it's more likely those systems will 
>continue to run for years to run on p2, until eventually somebody turns 
>out the lights.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. I can certainly agree with that. But
even if a fix is required there are associated costs to a language
upgrade that rarely justify it. And for this reason Python 2 should
remain well and alive for the lifetime of any legacy code.

The OP however is hinting at the idea that Python 3 isn't ready to
create its own production code, because either the standard library or
the 3rd-party library real estate isn't giving the language enough
working tools. This is false, of course. Python 3 has been producing
working applications for years.

I'm not much of an apologist of Python 3. I don't defend for instance
that people should upgrade *old code* to Python 3 code. (I'm not even
qualified to do so, since I'm a relative newcomer to the language
whose only experience with python 2 has been to understand how to
create backwards compatible versions of my Python 3 code).

But I do really defend the idea that we should stop looking for
justifications to keep creating *new code* in Python 2. Everytime we
do so we are extending the transition period and perpetuating all the
backward compatible issues we have been facing. I mean, I would love
to one day stop worrying about creating backward compatible code in
Python 3. It's one royal PITA.

So, when I see someone crying over Twisted lack of support, or some
obscure bug in some library, I just wonder if these people started
programming today. There was a time when people had to do without
Twisted. And there was a time when people had to do with bugs in the
standard library. If these programmers can't abide by those things
what were they doing back then?