Noob question on 2 vs 3 Python releases

[Franck Ditter]

Pardon my noobness (?) but why is there a 2.x and 3.x development
teams working concurrently in Python ? I hardly saw that in other
languages. Which one should I choose to start with, to cope with
the future ? Isn't 3.x supposed to extend 2.y ?
This situation is very strange...
Thanks for your explanations...

franck

 

[Chris Rebert]

Pardon my noobness (?) but why is there a 2.x and 3.x development
teams working concurrently in Python ? I hardly saw that in other
languages.

You haven't heard of the infamous Perl 6?

Which one should I choose to start with, to cope with
the future ?

Read http://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3

Isn't 3.x supposed to extend 2.y ?

Not just extend. It also makes some *backwards-incompatible* removals
and revisions, hence the different major version number.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Anssi Saari]

Pardon my noobness (?) but why is there a 2.x and 3.x development
teams working concurrently in Python ?

Well, Python 2.7 is the last major 2.x release, only bugfixes are done
for it, like the 2.7.1 release. Actual developement is in the 3.x
branch now.

Which one should I choose to start with, to cope with
the future ?

I started with a good book covering both. The basics are mostly the
same anyways.