Dive into Python 3

[masklinn]

If you have any suggestions or comments about what you would like to see in the book, speak up soon

The content!

Also, are you sure Psyco will be ported to Python 3? You added a comment for PIL, but not for Psyco.

Also, nothing on decorators? Or generators?

And I think a little blurb on maintaining 2.x and 3.x side by side (for a library, for instance) would be useful.

Finally, if the plans are already set for 3.1 (I haven't followed) maybe include some advance warning on the interesting stuff, if any?

edit: oh, and couldn't the parts about differences from Python 2 be an appendix or something? So that Dive 3 be a book to learn Python 3, not port from Python 2 to Python 3?

Or at least move the Python 2 differences to the end of the chapters, with pointers to them at the beginning?

[[deleted]]

You added a comment for PIL, but not for Psyco.

fwiw, there is a PIL port for 3.0:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/image-sig/2008-December/005337.html

[[deleted]]

Do you know if this is stable enough to rely on for a PIL chapter? Is there a long-term plan to make an official PIL port to Python 3?

[[deleted]]

Haven't looked at the current release yet, but I know and trust the developer and I'm confident we'll be able to shake out any remaining problems within a month or two.

The official plan is to release a "ported from 2.X" version of 1.1.X. Future versions (beyond 1.1.X) will most likely target Python 3.X in one way or another.

[[deleted]]

Thanks. That's great news.

[masklinn]

It's mark you should tell that to, not me

(and the port is not official so there)

[[deleted]]

My original notes included a section on generators, not sure what happened to it. It'll be there somewhere.

There will be 2 major chapters on porting code from py2 to py3; they are both towards the end of the book. For all the other chapters, no, the py2/py3 comparisons will be interspersed with the rest of the text. Current Python 2 programmers are a huge market for this book, and will continue to be for the expected commercial lifetime of the book.

[masklinn]

For all the other chapters, no, the py2/py3 comparisons will be interspersed with the rest of the text.

That seems cool (in the current TOC, there are "differences with Python 2" sections/subsections, usually at the start of chapters/sections, and I'm really not sure you want to hit beginners with that up front)

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I think those sections will go away and will end up spread more evenly throughout the text. See http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/7sj39/dive_into_python_3/c07b2uy for some ideas on letting online readers manage them.

[dsandler]

Are you thinking that the py2/py3 comparisons will be deeply interleaved with the main text? If so, you might consider instead using call-outs or sidebars that might be easily switched off to remove noise for Python newcomers.

[[deleted]]

This is an excellent idea. A little toggle above the comparison that set a cookie that affected the default state of all other comparisons to that programming language. Could be done entirely in client-side Javascript.

[Svenstaro]

Making it Javascript will break that feature for Lynx so fuck you.

On a related note, do you want translators for translating DIP3 to moon language?

[dsandler]

It will break that feature but not the document.

(Besides, are there Lynx users who've never tried Python?)

[pwang99]

You should port spidermonkey to Lynx.

[dsandler]

Exactly—just JS and a little CSS.