"Programming Python" still worthwhile?

[Martijn Faassen]

Rick Robino wrote:

> Gordon McMillan <gmcm at hypernet.com> wrote:
> > Python 2 is around a really, really big corner, and then down the
> > block quite a ways. Python 1.6 sometime in 2000 (which will be
> > backwards compatible), so no 2 until 2001 or 2002.
> 
> I didn't do alot of research, but I couldn't get a good feel from
> the huge thread that has been going on here named after 2.0. Appreciate
> the ETA.

Python 2, while one of the favorite topics, is actually (as far as
known) in complete vaporware stage, and no public designs exist. Of
course, Python 2 will also solve all our problems, be resistent to
whitespace eating nanoviruses, and be both garbage collected and
reference counted, automagically. It'll feature the solution to
assignments in expressions too!

For some reason Pythoneers in this newsgroup (me included) like to talk
about improving the language, though it's a very nice language already.
Although some see this as a bad sign, I think the fairly intelligent
discussion that *usually* is the result is quite interesting. Some
discussions excepted. :) 

Thanks to some newsgroup luminaries like Tim Peters (Tim, you're a
newsgroup luminary now!), who seems to have programmed in just about any
language in existence and can compare them all fairly to Python, the
level of discussion remains fairly mature at most times. Though the
latest Python 2 thread became a bit too emotional for my tastes in
places.

The *true* Python 2 things are the rare statements made by Guido on it
(and rumors of his statements :).

Regards,

Martijn