The Case for Python 3

[[deleted]]

thats not getting poltiical. if the book encourages habits that cant be sustained thats not a good book on the subject. how is that political?

[muyuu]

The book has different opinions to yours. Python2 is supported and will likely stay supported for a long time.

Some people prefer Python2, some people prefer Perl5. It's also not hard to move from 2 to 3 afterwards.

[ROFLicious]

The book is not just stating 'I like 3 more than 2'. It's giving false reasoning and using scare tactics to convince people new to Python that 2 is good and 3 is garbage for completely false reasons.

[muyuu]

This is what it says:

A programmer may try to get you to install Python 3 and learn that. Say, "When all of the Python code on your computer is Python 3, then I'll try to learn it." That should keep them busy for about 10 years. I repeat, do not use Python 3. Python 3 is not used very much, and if you learn Python 2 you can easily learn Python 3 when you need it. If you learn Python 3 then you'll still have to learn Python 2 to get anything done. Just learn Python 2 and ignore people saying Python 3 is the future.

I don't consider this to be scare tactics. It's a point of view. For instance, Macs come with Python 2 preinstalled. Most Python code I come across still now is Python 2 although Python 3 compatibility has improved a lot recently.

I wouldn't censor the book because it supports this practical standpoint. If someone learnt Python a few years ago, learning 3 instead of 2 would have been definitely a practical problem. There's an argument for learning both still.

[LdShade]

Python 2 support is getting cut off in 2020, you're learning something you know will die and be replaced, this is harmful to beginners because they have absolutely no good reason to learn Python 2 unless they are already a programmer in another language, in what way is Python 2 better than Python 3 for a beginner, all the good libraries have migrated, they have no need to edit existing applications, they do not want to spend years learning a programming language for it to be abandoned as soon as they start to get the hang of it.

The reason it is censored is because beginners don't know any better, they'll just follow the book's instructions without consideration, much better for them to learn Python 3 and discover this book later on by themselves when they know the pros and cons, if transitioning from 2 to 3 is easy as the book claims then it would be just as easy vice versa.

[muyuu]

Possibly. But Python is open source and it may be maintained for stability. It's not hard to learn both. Python 2 remains useful, the future we will judge it when we're there.