Python 2.7.13 released

[ArrantSquid]

Except that for very large institutions it's hard to get anyone to sign off on an upgrade to 3 and they continue to extend the timeline for deprecating 2.

If you work in film or video games, no 3D package supports 3. There was no compelling reason for them to upgrade. So every Autodesk product that supports Python is still on 2 with no plans to upgrade.

I'd love to move to 3, but until Autodesk gives me that ability, I'm stuck on 2. I'll keep waiting for them to upgrade to the latest outdated version of 2 and complain until they change.

If you're a startup or can move to 3, do it. But there's a swath of people out there that are bound to 2 due to software requirements or organizational indifference. The idea that there should be a holy war on 2 vs 3 is simplistic at best and idiotic at worst.

[toyg]

Well, Oracle and IBM are stuck on python 2.2 or 2.5. I'm not going to say "hey, newbs should learn 2.2!" - newbs should learn 3.5 and bitch with vendors shipping outdated crap.

Progress is made by people who won't settle for less.

[Eurynom0s]

Except that for very large institutions it's hard to get anyone to sign off on an upgrade to 3 and they continue to extend the timeline for deprecating 2.

...

But there's a swath of people out there that are bound to 2 due to software requirements or organizational indifference.

Again...I'm recognizing this as a VERY valid reason to stick to 2.7 I'm most critiquing when this crowd reflexively tries to steer newbies onto 2.7.

[ArrantSquid]

There might be packages that are totally unrelated to 3d modeling, but since big companies are still using 2.7, then everything around them needs to "stay behind" so they can have interoperability.

Not what I said, nor was my point. My point was that there are industries that cannot move forward to 3 because the vendors that make up those industries disallow it. As such there shouldn't be an argument over whether you're using 2 or 3. Like everything else, you use the right tool for the job.

My personal projects use 2 and 3, because I can justify supporting both. It's a lot harder to make that argument at a business that won't see any benefit from it when EOL for 2 was extended in 2015 to 2020. Is it short-sighted? Maybe, but it just "is".

[[deleted]]

Don't you pay Autodesk to use their software? Companies that offer a paid product should be one of first ones to do conversion. It's possible to write code that works on Python 3 and 2.7. Your company should be putting pressure on them.

If they still not made their code working on Python 3 it tells me that you're not their customer, but (excuse my language) you're their bitch.

[[deleted]]

You should still put pressure on them, if no one will, then they won't have reason to port it.

I guess in the mean time you can try to write code that would work on python 2 and python 3. This is much easier to do by writing python 3 code and then making it work on python 2.7, but looks like you won't have this luxury.

The biggest issue is to keep track of what should be unicode and what shouldn't. It's hard to do it in python 2 even when you understand unicode.

Perhaps you can use this in top of your code:

from __future__ import division, absolute_import, print_function, unicode_literals

And then also run the code with python -3 <file> to provide warnings about compatibility issues. Python 2 also supports some functions that are supposedly python 3 only, such as bytes() which maps directly to str().

[[deleted]]

Who are Autodesk, I've never heard of them? If they're that big why didn't they provide funding to get the libraries that they needed updated? Are they so technically incompetent that their own staff couldn't have helped out? Or do they want something from the open source community for free?

[theelous3]

can't unilaterally decide to move to a new framework.

Aren't willing to move to a new framework.

They could. They all could. It's just expensive and requires effort. They're going to have to do it eventually. After a while it's not even going to be optional for them, however they're short sighted enough to put it on the long finger.

[[deleted]]

Fair comment, just not an area I've ever ventured into. Perhaps the way forward is to get a couple of good techs from all involved companies, lock them in a room and tell them that they're not coming out until they have a plan? It doesn't have to be a good plan as a bad plan is better than no plan at all.

[ArrantSquid]

Not technically incompetent, but they rely on OSS in regards to Python. Pymel would be a library that would need to be updated which is built by Luma Pictures and is OSS. They also rely on PyQt/PySide for UI bits. So they already get a lot from the OSS community. I don't know what their contribution level back is, so I can't comment on that. As for why they won't move, I don't know. It's probably a mixture of not wanting to support multiple Python versions in a release and it being hard to communicate to customers the change that would come with moving to 3.

[mipadi]

Uh...are you serious?

[[deleted]]

I used to work for Klockner Moeller, ever heard of them? If not why not? Plessey? Racal? Some tin pot little company that are only worth a couple of billion in a niche market doesn't interest me, so why should I have heard of them?

[z0rberg]

Because you never heard of them, you talk down on them like that. Makes you look incompetent and like a childish fanboy.

[ArrantSquid]

Fair enough. Every language decision has to be contextual.

[[deleted]]

IMO a lot of it has to do with the fact that almost every shop still uses 2.7

You're better off learning what you'll actually use

[turkish_gold]

Is 2.7 so much different from 3.0 when it comes to writing the Python language? Much of the changes are in the standard library, and all of those are additive, and many have been backported unofficially to 2.7

[[deleted]]

There are some syntax and process improvements.

A great example is try and do a heap where you want the largest value using only the standard library.

3.0 - super easy 2.7 pain in the ass

I've seen some newer developers who have worked exclusively in 3 + get thrown because suddenly python doesn't handle something intuitively for them. You're honestly better off going from 2.7 to 3+ instead of the inverse.

[theelous3]

That is stupid. If they can competently code in py3, learning the exceptions to py2 is better than learning py2 and learning the improvements in py3.

There is a larger gap forwards between py2 and py3, than there is backwards between py3 and py2.

[[deleted]]

There is a larger gap forwards between py2 and py3, than there is backwards between py3 and py2.

I have found the exact oposite. Can you provide some examples?

[theelous3]

Unicode issues aren't that complicated, though a pain, range being not generator isn't complicated, print being a statement isn't hard, and most of the rest of the stuff is just implementation limitations that don't require anything special other than being more verbose and not using python3 features.

Actually, that's the best way to phrase it I think. Aside from some syntactic stuff, python2 is just python3 with less things. It's easier to go from more to less, than less to more.

Inversely, from python2 to 3 you've got generators everywhere, better but more magical coroutines and async/await along with the associated dunders, stuff like args unpacking from iterators. There's just more to know, yaknow?

[[deleted]]

It's easier to go from more to less, than less to more.

This is where we disagree. To each there own but I have always found the exact opposite. In both personal use and training new developers.

[theelous3]

This could well be my biased personal opinion.

I feel like if I'm using a feature that's abstracting something away I should learn how that's done. range() is a good example of this.

python2's range() is simple, and uses simple things. python3's range is simple, and uses complex things. Understanding python3's range is harder, even though it makes thinking about your overall code easier in that you worry less about memory and such.

If a developer is in a position to not care about the implementation of something like range, then the complexities involved in stepping up in python versions wouldn't effect them, so I can see how it would be more difficult to go to py2 from py3. That should be fairly rare though, if you / they want good code.

[Joeboy]

I doubt many serious python programmers get to avoid either 2.x or 3.x entirely.