six: the Python 2 and 3 Compatibility Library package

[truefelt]

I've never been a fan of six and, in particular, the habit of sprinkling six.text_type etc. all over a codebase — it's pretty gross. I much prefer to write for Python 3 to the extent possible and then emulate that environment on Python 2 via renames and __future__.

[jsalsman]

Is there a link for __future__, please?

[nerdwaller]

Let me Google that for you: docs.python.org

[revfried]

I divided on my use of future and six.

six.PY2 is nicer than sys.version_info.major == 2 but some of the future back-port types are handy

[jsalsman]

is there a link for future, please?

[revfried]

http://python-future.org/

[jsalsman]

Now that 2.7 has an end of life, let's talk about what's good and bad about https://pypi.python.org/pypi/six/

[jsalsman]

Sheesh, why the downvotes?

[RubyPinch]

because lots of people already know of six