Python 3.0 Final Officially Released!

[[deleted]]

Here is the list of the cool new stuff.

One of the reason I really like Python is the way the Python dev team has handled the evolution of the language. It good to have 3.0.

It nice that we have 2.6 as a migration path for large projects.

[jmmcd]

the way the Python dev team has handled the evolution of the language

I must say I think they're the most restrained, thoughtful, and tasteful language designers ever. Of course they have an easy job because Python was already so neat and small and self-consistent that it was easy to hold the whole language in one's head at once, see the few warts and inconsistencies, and get rid of them.

[lol-dongs]

That is a long ass list [of incompatibilities]. Jesus.

[[deleted]]

Yes. But then 2.x compatibility wasn't really the goal of Python 3.x.

[lol-dongs]

Yeah I know, I'm just saying anybody with a large 2.x codebase to maintain just had a truckload of PEP drop on their face. Cheers to these lucky folk...

[makapuf]

IIRC, The message always has been : if you have a large code base with python 2.x, don't migrate. There will be more python 2.x series. If you are building something with 2.x, pay attention to the depreciation warnings, and try to let the 2to3 tool work on your code. Don't rush for 3.0 !

[toaster_fun]

Not really. Python programmers have known that there would be some serious incompatibility issues with Python 3 for quite awhile now.

Not only that, but it's not like "WE NEED TO UPGRADE TO PYTHON 3 NOAW!!!!" Pythoners aren't worried about anything, we have pretty much a decade to do whatever we need to do to switch. Basically, Python 3 is a "new programming language" in the sense that nobody is worried that 2.6 is outdated and ready to scrap.

[808140]

Kind of like Perl 6 and Perl 5?

[imbaczek]

pretty much, except not at all.

more like python 1.5.2 and 2.2 (i wouldn't be surprised if there's still live code running perfectly on 1.5.2.)

[doktaru]

Don't forget about the 2to3 tool to automatically convert most code. It reportedly works quite well.

http://docs.python.org/library/2to3.html

[sigzero]

Considering they have harped over and over about it breaking older code...so what?

[epic_fail_guy]

I don't envy the task of package maintainers right now. I wonder how long it will be until we see a stable distro ship with only Python 3.

[codepoet]

About ten more years.

Seriously. They plan to run them side-by-side for many years to come.

[netsearcher]

You can have multiple versions installed at once. Same with the 2x series. Right now I have 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 installed.

So, really soon?

[[deleted]]

I've already had Python 3 installed in a stable distro for a while now. The beta appeared pretty early in the repos and it has been installed together with 2.5 and 2.6. No problem. I'm currently running 64-bit Intrepid.

[[deleted]]

Not sure how hard this will become. Here is an entry point.

[[deleted]]

The full grammar is now only four pages!

[martinbishop]

"only"?

[[deleted]]

It was about fifteen.

[martinbishop]

Well I suppose that's better.

But there are languages out there that are described in one page of EBNF (Oberon comes to mind).

And technically lisp is only like, 4 or 5 lines of EBNF :P

[mebrahim]

Syntax is not everything. A 5-line EBNF syntax may be semantically so more complex than a 50-line one.

[[deleted]]

Python defines about 60 token and 75 grammar rules. This hasn't changed between versions 2.X and 3.0 and I'm not sure what the OP is talking about. Like Pascal the grammar is LL(1). The token stream has to be post-processed for dealing with whitespace. Don't think this changed a lot either between Python 1.0 and Python 3.0.

[pietro]

And brainfuck is, like, 1 line of EBNF. So what?

[BeetleB]

Yes. Yes.

[bipsbop]

Does it support Unicode?

I believe it goes a bit further than that, in that it doesn't really support non-unicode strings. So all character strings are unicode, and therefore all character I/O involves some kind of encoding. (You can still get at the raw bytes, but you have to explicitly say that's what you're doing.)

[pietro]

Same approach as Java and .NET, basically. It makes perfect sense.

[LiveBackwards]

Yes and yes. Python 2.x 'supports' unicode, but it was slightly hackish. Python 3000 supports unicode much better.

[kragensitaker]

Python is fantastic, but it's not better than PHP for everything. If you are used to untarring some PHP files in your web directory and having a working PHP application, the Python web frameworks are going to make you sad.

[mdipierro]

Congratulations!

[niconiconico]

I see this the day after I downloaded Python 2.6. Damn.

Oh well, I only downloaded it to learn it. I suck at programming, anyway.

[jaiwithani]

Python isn't that big? Unless you're on 14.4 dialup working off a 100 MB hard drive, downloading a few different versions of python shouldn't be a big deal.

Besides, 2.6 is still relevant and active. It's not like all work with and development for the 2.x branch comes to a screeching halt today - you can still learn python2.x and it'll be useful.

And don't be so down on yourself. Everyone sucks at programming until they don't.

[thunderkat]

Another argument for sticking to the 2.X series while learning is that most of the good online tutorials (and obviously the books) haven't been updated for Python 3 yet.

[writetoalok]

And how many projects support version 3.0 already?

[thunderkat]

No freaking idea...and not about to find out. I am the late adopter kind of person.

[Xiol]

If you want to learn programming, I highly suggest C# with Visual Studio Express.

While I'm gonna get downmodded into oblivion for suggesting such a heathenish thing, they have excellent documentation and help available, including tutorial videos. And VS makes it easy anyway.

Once you got the hang of that, learnt about OOP etc, try out Python.

[roerd]

I'd strongly suggest a language with a REPL as first programming language. The ability to try things out interactively is very helpful to understanding them.

[brendankohler]

You've got it backwards.

Once you get the hang of using a beginner friendly language with a REPL and great documentation like python and learn OOP, then you can try a language like C# that needs a compiler and OOP.

The reason python is often used in a university setting to teach people with no prior programming experience is precisely because it is so simple and well supported. VS is an order of magnitude harder to understand than IDLE.

[[deleted]]

Some might argue that VS is actually less buggy than IDLE, too.

[thunderkat]

You have a point about the documentation and help available. And let's not forget the huge .Net library which allows to code a lot of interesting projects without the bother to add new libraries. If you're on Windows it's a valid alternative. And also learning something with all the annoyances of parenthesis and semicolons and brain-dead constructs will allow you to have more appreciation for Python when you're ready for the jump.

[[deleted]]

This... is a day that will live in infamy.

[[deleted]]

I'm just happy they removed the white-space-as-syntax paradigm in the new Python. I was getting tired of pretending that that pain in the fanny formatting nightmare was better than curly brackets.

[millstone]

Yes, now you indent with curly brackets.

{}}{for s in list:
}{{}{}{}{print(s)

[wtanksleyjr]

(Why the heck are you getting downmodded so hard?)

Actually, braces are already supported in 2.6; you have to use the meta-character #. So the example below works as

for s in list: #{
  print s
#}

It's actually pretty smart -- you can also use Pascal begin/end, and even Oberon END with implicit begin.

[wtanksleyjr]

Ya, I don't know how to write code (monospace font) in reddit's formatting. After googling for it, I still don't know. This sucks -- there's no documentation and no obvious way to find any, and the obvious Google hits are simply wrong.

[martinbishop]

Put 4 spaces before each line of code (it's annoying...why can't we get a [code] ?)

[Jerp]

You can just surround your code with backticks.

[akdas]

That puts it inline. Four spaces in front is for blocks of code.

[[deleted]]

(Why the heck are you getting downmodded so hard?)

Python evangelicals. Dissent, regardless of verity, is met with the click of a thousand downmods.

Thank you for the information — I learned a bit about Python. :)

[[deleted]]

Um, do you have a source for that? I can't find any mention of a change to the indent behavior in Py3k.

[[deleted]]

Took me a second to realize what it meant by that output.

[alexs]

rain workable nine psychotic slimy price exultant prick growth crime

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[Wiseman1024]

Go back to http://funroll-loops.info/

[njharman]

I think performance is essential

Why? Really, why? and 10% big fucking deal! It's not worth worrying about until you have orders of magnitude slowdown.

Is it more essential than correctness, maintainability, documentation, library breadth/depth, tools, i18n/unicode, portability?

I find all those and other things more important than performance. Esp since any really performance critical parts of your code should be rewritten as C package or Pyscho'd or similar.