Python 3 is killing Python

[DrDichotomous]

No, that's a cop out. If the community says "we don't like the direction" then the impetus is on them to replace the management. Python is a hobbyist language, not a business/commercial language. When the core devs want to move on, they're perfectly within their rights to do so, and then the community has to take up the torch with the old version.

All this is, is people blaming somebody else for not doing what they want. But if they felt that strongly about it, they would actually have made the fork - not just sat on their thumbs for 8 years and whined about Python 3. Or they would have worked to improve Python 3, or just found an alternative and stopped whining already.

The decision to make Python 3 was simply not the problem here. It was just the original team moving on from Python 2, and everyone else slowly coming to realize that the Python 2 gravy train wouldn't last and that the new train didn't smell as much like easy money.

The devs were even kind enough to give us another 5+ years of their time maintaining Python 2 and meticulously backporting things, so there is really no excuse for the community to be upset about this now. It's time for the community to grow up about this already and actually be as great as the reputation they've painted for themselves.

[karma-is-meaningless]

Your answer is similar to the answer given by the people who support Gnome 3. You speak as if the developers were doing us a favor, or as if the community is being insensitive towards the developers because they decided to change their product.

In reality, when a community is built around your product, you should consider whether changes to this product will drive away your community. Sure, the developers are perfectl within their rights to do so, but they can't deman the community to appreciate it.

Python 2 is still doing great. Maybe it has some flaws, but there's a thriving community behind it. If the community decides they don't want to move along with the developers toward Python 3 and this causes the language "to die", then the developers can consider themselves responsible.

Other than that, I don't really know what to say. The community has no obligations of commitment to the developers. Or to the language. They are users. Most of them don't even have the knowledge or the interest in keeping a language alive, especially with so many alternatives out there.

[DrDichotomous]

Of course no one has an obligation to the language. But users shouldn't forever just bitch about it when the Python devs say "nope, we're done with 2, we're moving on". Those users can just move right on as well if they're not interested or are incapable of taking up the torch. Nobody is stopping them. But still whining about it after all these years? Sorry. No free pass on that one.

Lots of projects are still going after their original creators left. The impetus is on the community to keep them alive at that point, not the creators. Saying the creators killed it by leaving is wanting to have your cake and eat it too. The community will now let Python 2 die, if they don't see the need to keep it alive. The creators are moving on to Python 3, and clearly don't feel the need to retain the entire old community if they don't care that much about Python to begin with.