[python-committers] Pace of change for Python 3.x [was: My cavalier and aggressive manner, API] change and bugs introduced for basically zero benefit

[Alex Martelli]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 1:26 PM, Neil Schemenauer <nas-python at arctrix.com>
wrote:

> On 2017-01-24, Victor Stinner wrote:
> > You should take a look at this old deferred PEP:
> > https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0407/
>
> Thanks, that's very close to what I was thinking.  I would still add
> that we should be extra careful about incompatible language features
> until 2.7.x usage has mostly died off.  That isn't logically part of
> the PEP but a general development philosophy I think we should
> adopt.
>

I love that PEP. However, I don't think the best way to attract large
masses of people away from 2.7 and onto 3.* is to avoid adding features to
3.* releases: such an approach would not offer compelling reasons to
migrate, as needed to overcome natural inertia.

Rather, thinking of what arguments I could bring to add further support to
a case for migration (wearing the "consultant's hat" which I haven't donned
in 12 years, so, I'm a bit rusty:-) I think: performance/scalability;
stability; cool new features; whatever extra gizmos may help existing 2.7
code run fine under new shiny 3.whatever with only automated code
transformation steps in the way (reverse migration, i.e 3.foobar -> 2.7,
nowhere near as important). A lot of this describes stuff that HAS been
happening -- the "stability" point would be particularly well addressed by
PEP 407 or some variant thereof...


Alex
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