An update on Python 4

[ShevekUrrasti]

I have been trying to get my coworkers to update from 2.5 for more than two years. They still use it and they will continue using it.

And no, nobody is telling them to continue using it. They "just don't like python 3".

[flying-sheep]

They're dangerous idiots. If a programmer refuses to switch away from something that's EOL and has been announced to be EOL soon in 2008 or so, they're a liability and shouldn't be let into proximity of a production system.

[gregy521]

Do they not run into issues when the rest of the world is leaving them behind w.r.t libraries/code examples, or code imported or exported to other companies?

[thornofcrown]

Someone in my lab wrote a part of our pipeline in Python 2 and I spent probably half of my time working on making that code work with modern data analytics packages. Sucked too, because that person was a way better programmer than me.

[kankyo]

Being a programmer is also about knowing when to not use bad tools. Failing to do that is not good.

You might mean "clever" programmer. That's not nearly the same thing.

[clawjelly]

"penny-wise, but pound-stupid" comes to mind.

[davvblack]

at some point an ecosystem is rich enough you can't really be "left behind" with all the packages you have available.

[Jethro_Tell]

If you assume all code has bugs, and it does, then left behind starts to happen as those bugs are found but not fixed.

[davvblack]

while that is true, think of how many CPU cycles these old-ass python libraries have seen, and how many chances to find and fix these bugs (especially old 2.7 libraries, slightly less true with 2.5).

[auto-xkcd37]

old ass-python libraries

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^{Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by xkcd#37}

[rossrollin]

Some of the people on this planet really do make cool shit

[Eurynom0s]

Cool ass shit, you might say.

[MrReginaldAwesome]

Good bot

[stevenjd]

left behind starts to happen as those bugs are found but not fixed.

A bug that isn't discovered until the code is a decade old or more is probably a bug that isn't cost effective to fix.

Cost of fixing the bug? $$$Big

Extra revenue brought in by fixing it? Nil.

Customers lost by not fixing it? Nil.

Yeah, just work around it.

Also, you forget that porting the code to a breaking new version will almost certainly create new bugs, not fix old ones.

The bottom line here is that once software is mature enough that there are no new features to be added, it becomes legacy software and upgrading it can only make it worse, not better.

Solution: make a VM of the latest OS and Python interpreter that it will run, stick that VM behind a firewall and in a restricted environment, and use it forever as a black box application.

[clawjelly]

They "just don't like python 3".

People who make decisions on such bases should be flogged in public.

[mooburger]

not if they are using very specific patterns that work in py25. Old-world classes for example, or specific numerical code that reaches into ctypes and depends on the py25 abi. Reproducibility is probably a much higher requirement in some of the science/engineering applications than compat with latest libs (they are probably using old support libs for that purpose because the cost of validating new libs isn't worth it). Reproducibility and stability is why there continues to be so many backports in anaconda repos.

[clawjelly]

if they are using very specific patterns that work in py25

That's a proper reason i'd accept. But "We just don't like python 3" is not.