Using Python 2

[Leam Hall]

Various responses in no particular order:

On 09/08/2017 09:57 AM, Ned Batchelder wrote:
> I've heard a lot of FUD about the Python 3 transition, but this one is
> new to me.  What is it that CompSci folks want that developers don't
> want, that ruined Python 3?


It's not FUD if it's true. Calling it FUD without checking is, um, FUD. 
The phrase was "many of the changes in Python 3 are theoretically based, 
cleaning up of how Python does things to make them fit with what 
Computer Science teaches."


On 09/08/2017 08:51 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
 > Let's see. You can port your code from Python 2.7 to Python 3.6 by
 > running a script and then checking the results for bytes/text
 > problems.

I ran 2to3 on some code that worked under 2.6.6. and 3.6.2. 2to3 broke 
it for both versions and it was a fairly trivial script.



On 09/08/2017 08:42 AM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
 > That's somewhat irrelevant. Point is, Python 2 will quickly become a
 > pariah in many corporations during or after 2018, and we are going to
 > see emergency measures similar to the Y2K craze twenty years ago.
 >
 > The risk to Python will be whether the occasion is exploited by
 > fanboys of competing programming languages. The migration from 
Python2 > might be to something else than Python 3 in some circles.

To me this is where the Python community comes in. Moving 3,000 servers 
from RHEL 6 to something that uses Python 3 isn't a trivial task when 
most of those servers are not homogenous HPC nodes.

If Python 2 has bugs that aren't going to be fixed, then let's ask the 
question. If Python 3 was a total re-write that is not backwards 
compatible then it likely has some of the same bugs (due to same coders) 
plus new ones. If Python 3 is not a total re-write then why break 
compatibility?

To say Python 2 is old is true. What does it matter though? Unless 
Python 3 provides a business value for spending lots of time and money 
to change then "old" doesn't matter.

You're right that people may migrate to something besides Python. For me 
that question is real and some of the fuel is how the community can't 
understand that I work on servers that only have an old version of 
python. So far one person has answered the original design question. 
Everyone else has tried to convince me of something that is financially 
and professionally impossible and completely useless.

If you want to encourage people to move from Python 2 to 3 then continue 
to help answer questions when they are Python 2 based. Over time an 
individuals preference will be to move to Python 3 since 90% of the 
skill is already there. From a purely "is python a good language for 
many use cases" perspective the answer is yes. Welcome people and let 
their task needs and passions drive the change.

Leam