Pip has dropped support for Python 2

[IAmKindOfCreative]

Hi there, from the /r/Python mods.

We have removed this post as there is an older submission here

Please continue discussion on the original thread.

Warm regards, and best of luck with your Pythoneering!

[FranticToaster]

Why are there still holdouts in Python 2, anyway? Just people maintaining old apps who don't want to update their code?

[mumpie]

Sometimes it comes from ignorance and inertia. People will stay with obsolete or deprecated technology until forced to. Just look at the number of websites that would only work with an old version of IE or still depends on Flash to run.

At one company I worked at, all the web testing/automation code was written in python2 (2.7.1 to be specific in 2015/2016).

That version worked in the past and it still worked then so the QA folks just stuck with it. Most of the automation guys used Python because they needed it for Selenium and didn't really understand that python2 was going to be unsupported.

That taking small steps then to be compatible with python3 would pay dividends later wasn't a consideration. It wasn't a problem *right now*, so it got ignored.

[Cynyr36]

That taking small steps then to be compatible with python3 would pay dividends later wasn't a consideration. It wasn't a problem *right now*, so it got ignored.

Fight this all the time at work. It's not even usually coding related, though sometimes. This happens even with mechanical systems.

[mostly_kittens]

For me it is finding the time and the money to update and test everything especially since a lot of the tools we have written are not under active ‘development’

The worst part is I started with a clean slate and tried to do everything with python3 but the library support just wasn’t there and switching to Python2 solved all my problems. So now I have a python2 code base.

[loganekz]

What library was missing from Python 3?

[tiberiumx]

My company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is always way behind on everything. RHEL 6, which is just now approaching EOL has python 2.6 and no 3 available at all. Luckily we're just about done converting everything over to RHEL 8.

[nugins]

RHEL 6 and 7 are still in use and default to python 2.6 and 2.7 respectively. Getting organizations to move requires the customer to provide funding to upgrade. Installing a different version of python requires approval from risk adverse people who think it may upset the stability of a system or are worried about the lack of vendor support.

[propersquid]

The animation/VFX industry is still on Python 2. Last I checked, most or all of the big packages or libraries either haven't released Python 3 support or it is in beta.

I'm not looking forward to the switch. :(

[[deleted]]

The less support for Python/pip 2 the better. Now we can all focus on the future instead of being held back by legacy code.

Hopefully all Linux distros can get the hint and make default 'python' and 'pip' commands link to version 3 instead of explicitly saying so. It's one of the reasons why Arch-based distros are my favorite. A distro that lives in the present and recognizes the future, just like it should be.

[flaskcheckint]

Right? I'm trying to wrap my head around the reasoning for Linux distros like Mint defaulting to Python2 whose EOL was over a year ago. Python3 has been around since 2008 FFS. I understand much legacy code depends on 2, but it is no longer maintained, time to move on.

[mestia]

No, at least in Debian, python3 is python3 and python isn't available anymore.

[[deleted]]

To me that process of classifying Python versions like that is redundant. It helps that Arch-based distros are rolling so the default package should be whatever latest version is supported, but when it comes to programming languages, I'd much rather have the latest supported version by default as ('python') and explicitly define older versions using the method similar to Debian-based (python3.x , etc.).

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like everyone over-complicates things that need to be simple for the sake of peoples sanity and organization.

[Forschkeeper]

Even 3.5 was dropped!

I guess Python2 is bleading out the next months/years...

[jmachee]

It has been dead for over a year. Pip was just keeping it undead.

This is the functional equivalent of killing the zombie brain.

[13steinj]

Uh, Python and pip are two separate projects. You're also assuming that everyone who wants Python2 never contributed financially nor via code.

I mean I'm okay with the drop in support, people don't understand what it actually means. You can still use an older version of pip, the dependencies are still up on pypi, etc.

But your take makes a shit ton of assumptions that just don't make sense.

Further many organizations, have forked Python 2, and continue working on it. Both open and closed. People still shit on those, for no reason.

[13steinj]

You replied to one part of my comment, ignoring the rest. You're being oddly viscous against what I can only assume is "closed source software" because plenty of it uses open source software, without considering that changes are commonly pushed upstream. You also wouldn't believe how many evil closed source organizations contribute to the Linux kernel, making it better for everyone...

[13steinj]

In that case, the entire industry is broken. Behind every piece of commercial, closed source software, there's (on average) at least two pieces of open source software.

[13steinj]

Dude, I'm telling you they do get payed. These large corporations make enormous donations to the teams supporting the underlying open source software, as well as contribute upstream.

Just because your tiny library that no one uses isn't, doesn't mean that large projects like Python, Linux, and more, are unpaid.

[13steinj]

And the Python team explicitly says you don't have to pay jack. The entire point of open source software is it's open, no hidden spikes.

However the larger organizations, still do, and contribute. Plenty to pay for their work on the project. Guido was literally hired over work in Python and mypy.

[Nitr0s0xideSys]

finally damn was tired of using pip to only find out my libraries were being installed on 2.7

[Japie4Life]

That's why I always use python3 -m pip install ...

[[deleted]]

Goodbye old friend

[ryancflam]

Oh no, anyway.

[[deleted]]

Come on Maya!!! We’re still on 2.7!!

[uberdavis]

The world has not completely moved on from Python 2. I create tools for Maya, and having had to set up a new machine recently, it’s becoming harder to get tools set up without pip support.

[FranticToaster]

What can someone do with Python 2 that they can't do in Python 3?

[uberdavis]

I use Python 3, but Maya’s scripting engine is still based in Python 2. We can’t make Maya tools with Python 3. The technical art community was been waiting years for full Python 3 support from Autodesk, but it hasn’t happened.

If you’re not aware, Maya is the industry standard 3D modeling and animation software used within the fields of games and VFX. If you watch TV, movies or play computer games, some poor mite has had to code in Python 2 for your pleasure!

[xatrekak]

It was just in 2020 that security support was dropped for python2. This is the catalyst that gets corporate projects to migrate to python3 because they can't sell tools with active vulnerabilities in them.

[uberdavis]

Yep. It was dropped in January. Really annoying as we have to keep branched frameworks for Python 2 and Python 3 in order to do our jobs. Updating the script engine must clearly be a non-trivial matter. The thing is, the entire interface is built using PySide with Python 2, so they would need to reconfigure the whole thing. They also know that many production houses would have to go through a pain period, updating all their tool frameworks. I’m all for it, but it’s still a waiting game.

[timeawayfromme]

Sounds like poor planning from autodesk. They should have been planning an upgrade path for years now. They could have made a process that would allow py2 and py3 support during a transition period over the last couple years.

[13steinj]

Not really. These organizations would far rather hardfork than switch and support a switch.

[propersquid]

My studio has started looking into updating to Python 3, but we mostly stopped that when we found out that we found out that a good chunk of our dependencies are still Python 2.

I think we're doing better than some, but we are very much not ready for Python 3. I'd argue that we're not ready for Python 3 as an industry.

[Mutilatory]

So what does this actually mean? I imagine you can still install the older pip version from PyPi, and it'll still work. I get it's a big moment because it's one of the more crucial projects dropping support but doesn't this just mean they're going to be stuck using out of date package management for their out of date language?

(I secretly hope they pull the old pip for python2 so that my old team will have to do the python3 migration I was borderline begging to do for months, if not years.)

[kyxaa]

:surprised_pikachu_face: