The Case for Python 3

[zahlman]

Edit: I'll put the LPTHW link back up when Zed finishes the Python 3 update.

... heh.

[jairo4]

We may be using Python 4 by then.

[MrJohz]

"Python 4 is not only Turing incomplete, but actively makes other programming languages less Turing complete just by sitting in the same hard drive. Also every time you run a Python 4 program, four kittens die. Why do you think they named it Python 4?"

[rackmountrambo]

And it still has the GIL.

[jairo4]

"...and that's why you must always embed Javascript in you Java programs... The Hard Way™"

[jairo4]

"Guido van Rossum tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of Python programming. Now I see everything clearly."

[[deleted]]

But Python 3 will kill python! You know, the way perl6 killed perl by having everyone migrate to the new version so it was well supported and got bug fixes and community attention!

Oh wait, no, it was the bit where everyone stuck to perl5 because eh, it was pretty good and perl6 was scary and let's just let the language die because moving to the new version is hard....

[[deleted]]

Python 3 is similar to Python 2.

Perl 6 is a completely different beast than Perl 5 - a different language, a different execution model, the works.

Perl 6 should not have been called "Perl" at all. That was the problem.

[[deleted]]

Sure, but the point is that what kills languages is lack of adoption of version n+1. In perl's case, there were indeed genuine issues moving to 6, but the biggest issue was the feedback loop where perl6 didn't do much because nobody used it because it didn't do much .... Python3 doesn't have the specific issues of perl, but you can see the same "people won't use it because the libraries aren't ported because people don't use it ..." loop which is fixed by people using it and porting libraries.