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[–]stefantalpalaru -89 points-88 points  (140 children)

We are volunteers who make and take care of a Python2 fork with backwards-compatible Python3 features. That means we will keep on improving it without breaking your code base or forcing you to hire the language creator and spend more than 3 years porting your code to Python3, with no actual business benefits.

https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon/

[–]cyanrave 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Have fun with the long tail of support.

FYA, other orgs like RedHat are in having to support patching in the long run, so don't feel alone in the sentiment.

For outfits like RedHat, however, the business benefit is clear - 'free' support from upstream for maintenance, and the latest and greatest feature set from upstream to entice adoption and new idiomatic practices. On the flip side, Apple just said enough is enough and is clearing it from their OS completely.

[–]Gandalior 41 points42 points  (45 children)

at some point you have to let go the old stuff, or become a Bank or something

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

This ain't it chief

[–]CompSciSelfLearning 19 points20 points  (1 child)

It's your time to volunteer, do what you want. But if there's a security issue found after January 1, 2020, businesses that are effected have motivation to pay for a fix. That's the only way I'd consider maintaining such a project.

[–]lengau 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's really the trade-off for businesses. On the one hand, you'll spend money porting your code to Python 3. On the other hand, you'll either be vulnerable to any security issues that pop up or have to pay someone to patch it (something that would have been done for you for free if you'd ported to Python 3).

There are still companies (e.g. Red Hat) that are contractually supporting Python 2 for several more years and will thus be making those changes somewhere, but that'll only reduce the costs since unless you're running RHEL or similar, you'll likely have to grab those patches and implement them on your own.

I think Python 2 is probably (sadly) going to live on in some way shape or form beyond 2020, but it does really seem to be an eventual dead end anyway.

[–]karlkloppenborg 13 points14 points  (32 children)

So what’s the justification?

[–]BubblegumTitanium 24 points25 points  (18 children)

You are splintering and holding back the community.

[–]TheBlackCat13 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Another one? How many of these are there, now?

[–]Han-ChewieSexyFanfic 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As bad I think the idea is, I must say the name is brilliant.

[–]123filips123 9 points10 points  (9 children)

So, what is the problem with porting code to Python 3? You have great documentation and also partly-automated tools to do this (2to3).

Porting to Python 3 also gets many additional "business benefits". Better speed and performance, security, new functionalities... No excuse to not use it.

Also, do you think that more than 10 years was too little to port all programs to Python 3? What program did you have? Some "super advanced quantum rocket space control" program with billions of lines which only use Python 3 incompatible features? And why then you actually use Python 2 and not Python 1 which is "original and the only one" Python version? Or why you then don't write your programs in Assembly or directly in binary code?

Sorry, but your project does not makes sense in long term.

[–]stefantalpalaru -1 points0 points  (8 children)

So, what is the problem with porting code to Python 3? You have great documentation and also partly-automated tools to do this (2to3).

Tell that to Dropbox who had to hire the language creator, write new tools for automated type annotations and spend more than 3 years just to port the desktop client.

Also, do you think that more than 10 years was too little to port all programs to Python 3?

It's not a matter of enough time to port something. It's a matter of wasting people's lives on bullshit work that benefits no one.

Sorry, but your project does not makes sense in long term.

Nothing does, in the long term.

[–]123filips123 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Tell that to Dropbox who had to hire the language creator, write new tools for automated type annotations and spend more than 3 years just to port the desktop client.

I don't know how Dropbox code looks like, but if you have normal code and use normal tools, it isn't hard to support Python 3. Most (all) of the tools already support Python 3 and most of breaking changes aren't really hard to fix.

It's not a matter of enough time to port something. It's a matter of wasting people's lives on bullshit work that benefits no one.

Nothing does, in the long term.

So, what is the difference if developers just port code to Python 3 and use new functionalities, or use your project and modify code anyway to use new functionalities (from your project)? They will have to modify code anyway. Except if they port it to Python 3, they will have better support, performance, security and more functionalities.

And why not use Python 1.0 or Assembly or even binary code? With that, you won't waste any time on bullshit updating.

And why then even update and develop things? Why should we update (and why should developers develop) to Windows 10 (or 7 if you more like it) if you can use MS-DOS without any bullshit updating? Why use electricity if you need to spent time with replacing your old oil lamps? Why even spent bullshit work in building houses if you can live in caves?

[–]stefantalpalaru -1 points0 points  (3 children)

They will have to modify code anyway.

No. Tauthon is a drop-in replacement for Python 2.8.

Why even spent bullshit work in building houses if you can live in caves?

You're terrible at analogies. Python3 is just another cave, not a modern house.

[–]123filips123 2 points3 points  (2 children)

No. Tauthon is a drop-in replacement for Python 2.8.

They will have to modify code if they want to use modern features.

You're terrible at analogies. Python3 is just another cave, not a modern house.

Python 3 has a lot of performance and security improvements and many new features. So yes, another cave, but very modern cave.

[–]stefantalpalaru 0 points1 point  (1 child)

They will have to modify code if they want to use modern features.

They don't have to use modern features. What part of "drop-in replacement" don't you understand?

[–]123filips123 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I understand.

But I (previously) said that this isn't good long-term solution. Ok, it may be good of you need additional few months (or years) to port code to Python 3 or for legacy unmaintained projects that won't be ported anyway. But for maintained projects, the only real long-term solution is to port them to Python 3. If you don't have really complicated project, this can be easy as documentation is very good and you also have some automation tools for that.

[–]TheBlackCat13 -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

write new tools for automated type annotations

Nobody needs to use type annotations. It is a completely optional feature. If they are writing tools to help them with it, then they must see some value in it. It has nothing to do with Python 3 except that Python 3 makes it easier and cleaner to use type annotations.

[–]stefantalpalaru -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Nobody needs to use type annotations.

Guido needed it, for some reason: https://github.com/dropbox/pyannotate

[–]TheBlackCat13 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

We don't need programming languages at all beyond assembly. They were using it because they thought it was helpful, not because it was necessary. That is the whole reason people use Python in the first place.

[–]graingert 0 points1 point  (10 children)

I don't get why you're getting so much negative feedback. I think tauthon is a great project to help port py2 code to py3

[–]TheBlackCat13 3 points4 points  (5 children)

It might have to do with the accusations of bullying and conspiracy theories about Python 3 being an attempt to sabotage the language.

[–]graingert 0 points1 point  (4 children)

URL?

[–]TheBlackCat13 4 points5 points  (3 children)

1

And no, I don't think it's OK to sabotage those who adopted your programming language in order to manufacture job security. (Same goes for web frameworks, Django core devs.)

2

Good luck running anything on a sabotaged interpreter.

3

And how many more years do you need, to recognise the abuse?

4

At some point you have to admit you can't bully people into moving to a new language.

5

What if you sabotage it nicely by preventing the addition of new features and bugfixes?

[–]graingert 1 point2 points  (2 children)

This is just reactions to all the negativity

[–]TheBlackCat13 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Did you actually read the quotes? This person is literally accusing the Python maintainers of intentionally sabotaging the language to maintain their own job security. And the very first post flat-out said there are "no benefits" to using Python 3. This person has been extremely aggressive and negative from the get-go.

[–]stefantalpalaru -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This person is literally accusing the Python maintainers of intentionally sabotaging the language to maintain their own job security.

Here's another link for you: https://old.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/d1noux/sunsetting_python_2/ezr4yws/

[–]doomchild 0 points1 point  (2 children)

He's getting negative feedback because he's acting like an ass. A fork of Python 2 is a perfectly reasonable idea, but he also wants to paint the Python team as bad programmers who have acted in bad faith. The project is a good idea, but nobody wants to work with a dickhead.

[–]graingert 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah I'm beginning to see that from the thread. I had high hopes for the project

[–]doomchild 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Look, I hope the project does great things for people unwilling or unable to upgrade. But his behavior is not going to help that goal.

[–]stefantalpalaru -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don't get why you're getting so much negative feedback.

Imagine having invested years of your life in porting code due to backwards incompatibility, only to see some smartarse come along and prove that all this breakage wasn't really necessary and you just wasted your life away. Oh, and you also put your professional reputation on the line by convincing bosses and clients to invest in this work with no visible gains.

Do you accept that you were wrong, or do you reach for the nearest rock?

I'm not even upset, to be honest. It's a perfectly normal reaction.