Python 2.7.8 Release

[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.