Python 2 to 3 conversion - embrace the pain

[Ned Deily]

In article <meb6ct$11j$1 at dont-email.me>, John Nagle <nagle at animats.com> 
wrote:
>    If only that were true.  Look what I'm reporting bugs on:
> 
> 	ssl - a core Python module.

I assume you're referring to http://bugs.python.org/issue23476.
It seems to me that the issue there was not in Python but due to a 
shortcoming in OpenSSL itself.  When the shortcoming was addressed in 
the most recent major release of OpenSSL (1.0.2), both Python 2 and 3 
were modified to take advantage of the new OpenSSL API option when 
available.  Also you would have seen the same behavior if you upgraded 
to the current version of Python 2 (2.7.9), since 2.7.9 now has most of 
the same TLS/SSL support code and best practice defaults that 3.4.3 
does.  So let's not blame this one on Python 3. 
 
> 	cPickle - a core Python module.

http://bugs.python.org/issue23655

No question that this appears to be a serious problem and, while yet 
unresolved, does appear to be a bug in Python 3 itself.

> 	pymysql - the pure-Python recommended way to talk to MySQL.
> 	bs4/html5parser - a popular parser for HTML5

I'm not in a position to comment on those third-party projects. It's too 
bad that you ran into problems with them.  Any idea if you would have 
seen similar problems if you had used them with Python 2?

In any case, of the two problems noted with Python itself, there is only 
one that appears to be Python 3 related.  That's still not good but I 
think it would be fairer to ascribe a good chunk of the pain you've 
experienced to the more common pain of upgrading any major software 
system that depends on multiple third-party components.

-- 
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org