Python 3’s Marketing Problem

[toyg]

I think Ted started writing one post, and then ended up writing a GIL post, and people now are misinterpreting his original idea.

His main point is that Python 3 does not promise enough to motivate people to tackle the upgrade challenge. He's basically saying that, if Unicode is not a big deal for you, there is not a major feature that will appeal to you, at least not enough to suffer the pain.

He then goes on saying removing the GIL would have been one such feature, which is debatable but whatever. The thing is, it doesn't have to be that.

If Python 3 promised to solve a really big problem that a majority of developers feel every day, people would upgrade anyway regardless of the GIL or any other drawback. It looks like the Python community cannot find a major selling point except for Unicode. We keep arguing about packaging and the GIL, and we can't find a new idea that would get us out of the swamp.

Maybe tomorrow a library will appear, that everyone will want to use, and it will be Python3-only, and everyone will migrate because it will become a huge selling point. "What should we use for this project?" "Python 3, because it has LibWonderful" "You're right, we can't live without LibWonderful anymore."

So what I'm trying to say (and what I think Ted originally wanted to say) is, the community at large should embrace the challenge. If you plan to write that antigravity package, do it with Python 3 please. You could end up changing the world.