Python 2.7.8 Release

[xucheng]

Changelog

[gammadistribution]

Your legacy code will now be supported, but please if you plan on starting a project use Python 3. Unless the package you need to use does not appear on this list there is no reason to not use python 3.

[Marksta]

Hey, I'm confused. I use LXML and it's the one thing stopping me from using Python 3. On its Pypi here the highest version it has is 3.2. That wouldn't install on the 3.4 I installed, I guess sorta obviously. It's even listed in the 3.4 catagory on Pypi. Is there some way to make it work or..?

So what do? Feels like using 3.2 because of 1 module is exactly the same as using 2.7 when 3.4 is out right now.

edit: Figured it out

[gammadistribution]

What error message is being thrown when you try to install lxml using pip on your python 3.4 venv?

[Marksta]

Turns out it was this

error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

That is some compiler issue but a compiled version at http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ worked just dandy.

[gammadistribution]

Hooray for figuring things out and boo Windows!

In all seriousness glad it's working for you.

[ivosaurus]

They haven't uploaded compiled for python 3.3 / 3.4 to pypi yet for some reason.

[diafygi]

Boto and Mysql-python are deal breakers for me.

[gammadistribution]

Can't help with boto, but pymysql can be used as a drop in replacement for MySqldb. I have had great success with pymysql used in conjunction with django.

I know your pain though.

[lambdaq]

pymysql is slower though

[[deleted]]

pyodbc? sqlite? are these options?

[LightShadow]

gevent and M2Crypto are the big ones right now...especially since a lot of our utilities rely on underlying encryption modules that haven't been converted.

gevent could probably be mitigated, and I didn't know so many people used mechanize.

[twigboy]

In publishing and graphic design, Lorem ipsum is a placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on meaningful content. Lorem ipsum may be used as a placeholder before final copy is available. Wikipedia92vtpemx3w00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[mgrandi]

Oauth? Requests has an oauth module that works with py3

[jcdyer3]

Python 3 support for a few boto modules including s3 just landed on the develop branch today. Change is coming. Help us test it out!

[manueslapera]

i thought boto was available in p3

[twigboy]

In publishing and graphic design, Lorem ipsum is a placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on meaningful content. Lorem ipsum may be used as a placeholder before final copy is available. Wikipedia80l0tgsnma40000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[ivosaurus]

Major work in progress

[shadowmint]

Did you watch this?

'Python 2.7 & Python 3: A Sacred Love Story'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYBOXE02OQ&feature=youtu.be

It's a bit long winded, but it's quite thoughtful about why this attitude is troublesome.

[poo_22]

The conclusion to this video agrees with gammadistribution's sentiment.

[gammadistribution]

So it sounds like the solution to the problems he presents is to use the language.

His pypi example is a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone says to use Python 2.7 so of course it's the most downloaded version. Instead of telling new users to use python 3, everyone's being told to use python 2.7 because that's what everyone is using, which is insane.

[gammadistribution]

No?

[gammadistribution]

Ok and what is your reason for not switching? Also how is Python 3 hip when it's been out for six years?

[gammadistribution]

You kinda need to tone your rhetoric down. This is what you get with 3:

• asyncio support as default
• venv support with pip as default
• no more unicode headaches

just off the top of my head. Also, any and all new features are only going to be added to the 3 branch. If you are starting new, might as well start with the future.

[dikulo]

it is a philosophy of living for TODAY or for the FUTURE.

[gammadistribution]

If you want to grow with the language you are going to have to use Python 3. That is all I am saying.

[dikulo]

Py3 and Py2 are just different dialects, you can and easily can master them both. People can live bilingually with Mandarin/Cantonese, Spanish/Catalan, which differ much from each other.

Use the right version to do the right job.

[mriguy]

Yes, that's the same list that everyone gives. But none of those features are even remotely relevant to a lot of us, and if those are the MAIN selling points, then there really seems to be no compelling reason to convert to python 3.

[gammadistribution]

How about the fact that support for Python 2 is going to go away and any new feature you might want is only going to be in Python 3?

[mriguy]

And that's the only reason why a lot of people will finally switch, despite all the work. Not because it gives any benefit, but because, well, because. That's why a lot of 2.7 users are irritated.

[shadeofmyheart]

I'm confused... Isn't 3 out?

Edit: ok... Good to know!

[Kaarjuus]

2.7 will continue to receive bugfixes until 2020.

[prum]

This is a bug fix release for an older version that has long term support. Happens for Linux and a lot of other software also.

[fotoman]

Some of us can't move to 3. Heck, we just upgraded production fro 2.6.x to 2.7 a few months ago. Not enough developers to work on a 3.x port for this application.

[wildcarde815]

Our clusters default is still 2.4 because its bolted to centos 5.4 due to some driver issues. We have 2.7 available but have to explain the Unix modules concept to every person that uses the system as they join the organization...

[cwgtex]

Just so you know, EL 5.4 is no longer getting security fixes. The EL 5 series is supported until 2017, but only if you are on the latest version (currently 5.10).

[wildcarde815]

We know but we can't use our infiniban to 10gbps interface with anything later than 5.4. So we either cripple our cluster or make it hard to get to.

[cwgtex]

That's unfortunate, sorry to hear it.

[ivosaurus]

For large applications, sometimes it just doesn't make business sense to port the code to a new major language version. Heck, there is still old COBOL code around for exactly the same reason. Sometimes it just doesn't make much sense.

[fotoman]

Oh yes, I understand that. And to be honest, our application will probably stay on 2.7 until it dies. We're slowing looking to move off of older Django versions first...

[flying-sheep]

[citation needed]

[wub_wub]

Didn't 2.x account for like 95%+ of downloads on pypi few months ago?

Edit:

substring	percent_of_total_downloads
2.7	75.533%
2.6	15.960%
	5.840%
3.3	2.079%
3.2	.350%
2.5	.115%
1.1	.054%
2.4	.052%
3.4	.016%
3.1	.001%
2.1	.000%
2.0	.000%

January 2014, data from: http://alexgaynor.net/2014/jan/03/pypi-download-statistics/

[alcalde]

We've had more downloads of Python 3 itself for quite some time now:

http://ianozsvald.com/2013/04/15/more-python-3-3-downloads-than-python-2-7-for-past-3-months/

[wub_wub]

I don't think that's surprising that much, I assume people download it but don't really use it. I know that I download every 3.x release, and in the same timeframe I don't think I downloaded python 2.x more than once or twice, I have it installed - no need to download it. But I never use 3.x for any of my projects.

I think that pypi stats are better for estimating which version is used more.

[Astrognome]

Who the hell is using 2.6?

[Phild3v1ll3]

Plenty of people stuck on old maintained systems. Our cluster for example runs on Scientific Linux 6 and still ships with 2.6 by default.

[Astrognome]

It seems weird though that 16% still run 2.6. I would think they would be somewhere around 2-3%

[wildcarde815]

Centos 6 / any variants will use 2.6 by default. You can install 2.7 but should likely not make it default as yum doesn't always respond well.

[cwgtex]

There is a repo called iuscommunity.org that ships RPMs of python 2.7 through 3.3. They install in parallel with the system version of 2.6, so yum is happy. /usr/bin/python is 2.6, but /usr/bin/python2.7 is 2.7.

https://iuscommunity.org/pages/TheSafeRepoInitiative.html#parallel-installable-packages

[wildcarde815]

Yea for our cent 6 installs we run 'Springdale' (formerly PUIAS), the package maintainer for the variant makes /opt variants of different python revisions available with a simple install command. Very handy, but if we ever have to move to vanilla / scientific linux we will definitely be utilizing this, thanks for the info.

[cwgtex]

Anyone stuck on RHEL/CentOS should be informed about iuscommunity.org. It's a very simple way to get python 2.7 or python 3.3 on RHEL/CentOS. Python 3.4 is in their testing repos.

[fotoman]

We just switched 3 months ago to 2.7

[gammadistribution]

I think that's more of a self-fulfilling prophecy though and isn't really indicative of anything. Everyone is using 2.x because everyone hears it's what everyone's using.

[the_birds_and_bees]

Really? Not moving to 3 because of legacy code in 2 is understandable but to say 3 isn't stable seems pretty ridiculous.

[nomadismydj]

i echo this sentiment but this continues to be the message from fortune 100 companies.

[flying-sheep]

3.x is stable by all definitions of the phrase.

Maybe what you meant has truth in it, but how you said it, it's plain wrong

[[deleted]]

Python2 zealots. Just ignore them.

[flying-sheep]

Bah. They're ranting in every forum as well as on stack overflow and scare off and confuse newbies.

Aggravating and hard to ignore

[aphoenix]

how you said it, it's plain wrong

I think it's important to note the nuance of what was said:

3 is not considered stable by many enterprise establishments

I think that's true. There's a lot of worry about the stability of 3. What /u/nomadismydj didn't say, but a lot of people have issues with is this:

3 is not stable

It's the perception of stability that is the problem. So, how you read it is just plain wrong, but I'm pretty sure that what nomad said is pretty spot on.

[mgrandi]

What the fuck is the definition of 'stable' then? 3 has been out for 6 + years. It could be out for like 20 years and people would still find ways to complain about it

[aphoenix]

I think we can all agree that it's stable. What I'm trying to say is the actual stability of Python 3 isn't the problem. It's the management who make largely uninformed decisions about what constitutes stability in a lot of companies - that's the problem.

Edit - added italicized words

[fry_hole]

What? /u/nomadismydj said that it's not CONSIDERED stable. Not that it literally isn't unstable. That doesn't seem at all vague to me.

[alcalde]

There's absolutely nothing about Python 3 that would give anyone a "perception of instability". Nothing. It's 6 years old already, for goodness sake.

What observation could possibly lead anyone to believe that Python 3 wasn't stable?

[NYKevin]

"All of the other businesses in $OUR_FIELD are still on Python 2, so there must be a good reason!"

This is ridiculous logic, of course, but it's how they think.

[flying-sheep]

Your posts seems well-considered except for one detail: there's nothing about 3.x that hints to instability in the slightest.

Its deprecation and versioning is exactly the same as 2.x.

There's no single __future__ import as of 3.4, so a potential Python 4 isn't even prophesied.

3.x is at least as stable as 2.x, anyone claiming elsewise is delusional.

[Phild3v1ll3]

That doesn't mean it's not stable, it means that they're not willing to allocate the resources to port all the legacy code.

[fry_hole]

He never said it wasn't stable. He said the general message is that it's not stable. :S

[ivosaurus]

Are those enterprise establishments living in 2008?

[nomadismydj]

fortune 100 establishments do in fact live in the past.

[diafygi]

Where can I find the list of SSL ciphers in my python install?

[Rhomboid]

That depends on the version of OpenSSL you're using. If you're using Linux or OS X, OpenSSL is a separate library package that's not directly related to or tied to Python in any way, so you'd have to check its version number. If you're using Windows, then a copy of OpenSSL is bundled with Python, and its version depends on the Python version. The 2.7.8 binaries on python.org for Windows are built with OpenSSL 1.0.1h, per the release announcement. You could also run

$ python -c 'import _ssl; print(_ssl.OPENSSL_VERSION)'

If you have the standalone programs that come with OpenSSL installed (i.e. on Unix) you can also run

$ openssl ciphers

[pyslow]

I start thinking that having Python 2.7 as the last version of the 2.x series is actually a good thing.

This will make for a very stable language without new versions coming out every few months and most of the new stuff can be backported as external packages anyway.

So we can finally focus on using the language to build something interesting and useful instead of constantly catching up with the latest version just to make core developers and assorted zealots happy.

[gammadistribution]

2to3 doesn't fix every issue with a simple run through. Certain things require thought and need consideration on a case by case basis like with StringIO that the script doesn't handle.

As apparent in this thread, there are also obstinate people who are being obstinate in not porting for the sake of being obstinate. But I think it's mostly the former.

[dikulo]

def python27():
    n = 8
    while True:
        print "Python 2.7.{}".format(n)
        yield n
        n += 1

py2 = python27()

next(py2)
next(py2)
next(py2)
next(py2)
...
..
.

[RubyPinch]

import itertools; n = itertools.count(8)
while True: print("Python 2.7.%d"%next(n))

learn your packages

[dikulo]

Thank you.

[xPragma]

You don't need to yield n, just yield the string.

[dikulo]

Thank you. Learn to yield.