myths about python 3

[Benjamin Kaplan]

It's to be expected if the release team process specifies announcement
messages of the form “RELEASED: Python X.Y.Zrc2”. I have long argued,
without much traction, that the process should reserve the term
“RELEASED” for use only in reference to releases, not other things.

Don't worry, it's not just Python. Ubuntu Hardy (IIRC) had a Firefox 3
beta in the repositories until a little while after the final release.
I don't know what's taking them so long to upgrade to the final 2.6.4
though.

 

[Carl Banks]

Out of curiosity, and completely off-topic, why has Perl 6 gone so badly?

Because Larry Wall saw the writing on the wall that his "nice little
scripting language" was way out of its league in terms of what it was
trying to be (i.e., a real programming language suitable for building
applications), and so he bailed out and left the Perl community with
no leadership.

This is just my impression, but some of the efforts to create Perl 6
seem to be clinging to a notion that Perl has always been a good
language and are trying to ensure that it doesn't stray very far from
Perl's core principles. Problem is, Perl wasn't ever a good language
so they won't succeed. IOW, as Geremy Condra said, "it's too much
like Perl".


Carl Banks

 

[Blog]

Daniel Fetchinson wrote:
1. Python 3 is supported by major Linux distributions.

FALSE - most distros are shipping with Python 2.4, or 2.5 at best.

Where did you come up with that information? Almost all of the major
distros ship with 2.6.x - CentOS, OpenSuSe, Ubuntu, Fedora. (Debian does
ship with 2.5, but the next major release "sid' is due out in Q2)

Arguably, Python 3 has been rejected by the market. Instead, there's
now Python 2.6, Python 2.7, and Python 2.8. Python 3 has turned into
a debacle like Perl 6, now 10 years old.

WTF? Where'd you hear about version 2.8? FRI, 2.7 is and will be THE
LAST version of the 2.x series - "the" End-Of-Life for Python 2.

At least py3k is a real product - unlike the perl 6 vaporware.

That said, I think python 2 will be the dominant player in the market
for the next couple of years.

However, there's been some momentum behind Py3k recently. Unladen
swallow is going to be merged with Py3k (not 2.x for which it was
originally developed). I hear the django guys have made huge progress in
porting the framework to Py3k (although it will be a good few months
before the code is released in the wild)

 

[Blog]

My take on things is that doing unladen swallow really "right" will
require yet more incompatible changes; i.e., the result will either
still leave quite a bit of performance on the table, or else it won't be
compatible with the current specification of Python 3 and they'll
presumably have to call it Python 4. And if Python 4 is as good as I
believe it could possibly be, then it might get wide acceptance before
Python 3 really has all that much uptake. If I have to accept
incompatibility anyway, and Python 4 gives huge improvements while
Python 3's improvements are tiny or moderate, why not skip over Python 3?

There's a prime example - it's called Windows Vista!

 

[Nobody]

Arguably, Python 3 has been rejected by the market.

Arguably, Python 3 has not yet been accepted by the market.

Part of it is down to a catch-22: applications won't use Python 3 if the
libraries on which they depend don't support it, and support for Python 3
by libraries will be influenced by the perceived demand.

OTOH, it's safe to assume that there will remain areas where Python 2 is
preferred. Primarily Unix scripting, where most data is byte strings with
the encoding either unknown or irrelevant. That alone will ensure that
Python 2 is alive and well even as Python 4 is released. Even if
python.org doesn't support Python 2, it's a safe bet that e.g. ActiveState
will.

 

[Kevin Walzer]

Arguably, Python 3 has not yet been accepted by the market.

Part of it is down to a catch-22: applications won't use Python 3 if the
libraries on which they depend don't support it, and support for Python 3
by libraries will be influenced by the perceived demand.

This is part of my reason for not yet moving to Python 3--several
libraries that I will need do not currently support Python 3.

 

[Blog]

Where do you get your information from? Your answer is the first that
clearly marks the end of lifetime for the 2.x series. I didn't know that
and I'm a Python core dev as well as a PSF member ... *scnr*

Christian

Well, here's what the Python 2.7 alpha 2 (January 9th, 2010) release
note says:

"Python 2.7 is scheduled to be the last major version in the 2.x series
before it moves into 5 years of bugfix-only mode. This release contains
many of the features that were first released in Python 3.1..."

Ref: http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/


Here are some more resources:

"Python 2 nears end of life"

"Python 2.7, expected to be the last major version of the 2.x series of
the dynamic language, was released as a second alpha earlier month by
the Python Software Foundation, with the final release set for June.

When 2.7 is released, the 2.x line will move into five years of a bug
fix-only mode."

http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/development/software/news/index.cfm?newsid=18331


"2.7's the end of the line. There was some discussion around the release
of 2.6 as to how far the 2.x series should go, and the conclusion which
came out of it was that 2.7 is it. Beyond this, the world is 3.x (which,
given the time it takes OS distributors to catch up -- most are still on
2.5 -- is about right with the projected time frame for most projects to
port)."

http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/aoloc/python_27_alpha_2_has_been_released/


"Let’s also account for the fact that, as of this writing, Python 2.7
(scheduled for next year) is *intended* to be the End of Life release of
the Python 2.x syntax – Python 3 being the next evolutionary step."

http://jessenoller.com/2009/12/04/pythons-moratorium-lets-think-about-this/

Of course, this isn't written in stone - there may very well be another
version after 2.7. However, at this instant, it does look like 2.7 will
be the veritable last version.

Best regards.

 

[Blog]

Sid is the perpetual development playground (“unstableâ€), never released
as a suite, but a proving ground for packages to determine their fitness
for going to the next level of testing.

The next-to-be-released suite is Squeeze (currently “testingâ€), which
has Python 2.5 (the default ‘python’) and Python 2.6.

Oops! My bad! I actually meant Squeeze.

Thanks for catching the "typo".

 

[Anssi Saari]

Where did you come up with that information? Almost all of the major
distros ship with 2.6.x - CentOS, OpenSuSe, Ubuntu, Fedora. (Debian
does ship with 2.5, but the next major release "sid' is due out in Q2)

I don't see Python 2.6 in my CentOS 5.4 installation. All I see is
2.4. Same as RHEL and I'd say that's a fairly major distribution too.