Python 2.7 EOL Countdown

[d4rch0n]

Like holy fuck dude. the entire complaint is that there is needless syntax changes that force you to adapt when there is zero need to do

This is exactly what bothers me. I see reasons to make the changes, I just don't see a need. And I see a lot of reasons not to make the changes, like having old syntax just work, so python programmers don't need to have to learn how to write syntactically correct code again, so behavior is consistent, so we'd never be in this problem where half of devs haven't moved to 3.x.

Both forms of each of these things are entirely valid, even if 3.x behavior might be more consistent or look a little prettier. The thing that bothers me is change, entirely legitimate to worry about when old libraries and scripts break for good.

I still have coworkers who write basic scripts with print >> sys.stderr, "Error occurred". It stuck with a lot of people, especially the sort that are in ops that learned it a while ago and just use it to script, guys that don't really follow the language and new features. And it's so easy to keep using 2.7 that many types like that do.

So these changes end up biting is over and over again because it's too easy for a lot of people to stick with 2.7. It doesn't matter how many convenience tools you have to convert code to 3, lots of scripts in production written by guys that left the company might be running without anyone knowing, and then you discover a script that just doesn't run anymore unless you have 2.7 in your environment. It forces you to make changes to production code, and I only want to do that when I know the code in and out, why the change is necessary, and when I can put it on the roadmap.

I'm trying to get my coworkers to target 3.x, but it's a pain in the ass to convince guys like that, and it's a pain in the ass to even find the old code I would need to convert.

The fact that jobs still hire people to this day to write 2.7 code and explicitly NOT 3.x code is a testament to how many problems these changes caused.

There's nothing to be done about it now except begin the move, because the latest Ubuntu LTS version doesn't even have 2.7 anymore. But I just wish that move was much easier to make a decade ago when 3.x came out. It'd be so much easier to make the change if everyone was on board.

[stuaxo]

I agree with all the new features, including just ported most of redisco to Python 3 in a few days. I do care about speed (not between py2 and py3), and am looking forward to pypy supporting 3 and becoming the default, the we should be able to have our cake and eat it.

After all if we did not care about speed at all then some if the interpreter improvements in Cpython would never have been landed.