Python 2 to 3 conversion - embrace the pain

[Mark Lawrence]

On 16/03/2015 00:25, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Mark Lawrence wrote:
>
>> On 15/03/2015 20:59, Fetchinson . wrote:
>>> On 3/15/15, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> On 15/03/2015 19:05, John Nagle wrote:
>>>>> On 3/14/2015 1:00 AM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>>>>> John Nagle <nagle at animats.com>:
>>>>>>>      I'm approaching the end of converting a large system from Python
>>>>>>>      2
>>>>>>> to Python 3. Here's why you don't want to do this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A nice report, thanks. Shows that the slowness of Python 3 adoption is
>>>>>> not only social inertia.
>>>>>> Marko
>>>>>
>>>>>        Thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>>        Some of the bugs I listed are so easy to hit that I suspect those
>>>>> packages aren't used much.  Those bugs should have been found years
>>>>> ago.  Fixed, even.  I shouldn't be discovering them in 2015.
>>>>>
>>>>>        I appreciate all the effort put in by developers in fixing these
>>>>> problems.  Python 3 is still a long way from being ready for prime
>>>>> time, though.
>>>>>
>>>>> John Nagle
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This https://python3wos.appspot.com/ says differently.
>>>
>>> A "package supporting python 3" is not equivalent to a "package not
>>> introducing new bugs in its python 3 version relative to python 2" and
>>> is also not equivalent to a "package working without issues on python
>>> 3".
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Daniel
>>>
>>>
>>
>> So the packages increase their test coverage as the bugs get discovered
>> and fixed.  Or are you saying that a mere nine years isn't a long enough
>> time period to do an exercise like this?
>
>
> Mark, did you read John's post or just respond with a knee-jerk defence of
> Python 3? I quote:

To damn right it's a knee jerk reaction to defend Python 3, in response 
to the pathetic "Python 3 is still a long way from being ready for prime 
time, though".  Schumachers!!!

>
> "Some of the bugs I listed are so easy to hit that I suspect those
> packages aren't used much.  Those bugs should have been found years
> ago.  Fixed, even.  I shouldn't be discovering them in 2015."

So I suggest that either the Python 3 core devs stop any development 
work and concentrate on fixing bugs in abandonware, or help out in the 
fork to Python 2.8.  Which is the preferred option?

>
> Clearly a mere nine years is NOT long enough. Which is probably why the
> Python core developers are supporting Python 2 until 2020. Library authors
> will presumably be offering Python 2 compatibility for even longer.
>

Nine years is far too long a time period to claim that people are stuck. 
  If people spent more time writing and testing code and less time 
bleating, they'd probably be looking forward to Python 4 by now. 
Further many core developers are refusing to do any work on 2.7.  As far 
as they're concerned it's dead.  If you also consider that much code was 
backported from 3.x to 2.6/7 I think anybody having the audacity to 
complain should be taken out at dawn and shot.  After their fair trial 
that is.

The one area where I do have much sympathy is with the people sending 
data down the wire.  This is being addressed (I'm too lazy right now to 
look up the PEP) but with that out of the way as far as I see it the 
final excuse has gone, port your code or simply shut up.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence