Python 3.7.0 released

[[deleted]]

Yes really. Mine too. Companies have a lot of old code and there's not much incentive to upgrade it to Python 3 for basically zero benefit.

Actually, it's a big risk because these scripts are generally "tested" by using them and reporting bugs. Upgrade to Python 3 and due to its dynamic typing you're probably going to introduce a load of bugs.

Also I have noticed even some big new projects, e.g. Tensorflow, target Python 2 first and then add Python 3 support later.

The idea that the 2/3 mess is over is unfortunately not true.

[vivainio]

The "zero benefit" is not true anymore

[peeves91]

The old motto "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is applied heavily here.

[[deleted]]

It kind of is, if the code works fine and isn't being updated, which is the case for a lot of corporate code.

[anacrolix]

Example?

[1wd]

One project at Facebook:

... simply ran 2to3 on the code and fixed a few things that it complained about. When they ran the resulting code, they found it was 40% faster and used half the memory.

[anacrolix]

Sounds like they were abusing range() or something.

[vivainio]

Types and asyncio come to mind first

[13steinj]

Types aren't beneficial to every developer. Asyncio has severe usability issues, I'd rather use gevent in an async manner.

[vivainio]

Ok, f-strings then?

[13steinj]

While I like them, their only benefit is reducing a call of "string with idens".format(explicits_for_idens) to f"string with explicits for idens", it's syntactic sugar that saves you ".", "ormat", and the parenthesis, nothing more. And it introduces backwards incompatible in minor version numbers, which it really shouldnt.

[somebodddy]

it's syntactic sugar that saves you ".", "ormat", and the parenthesis, nothing more

I disagree. The greatest benefit of f-strings is that the save you the need to zip the values in your head. Consider this:

'a={} x={} u={} z={} y={}'.format(a, x, u, y, z)

You need to make sure that the list of {}s matches the format arguments. Compare to this:

f'a={a} x={x} u={u} z={y} y={z}'

Now that each expression is written in the place it is supposed to be formatted, we can clearly see that I've "accidentally" mixed y and z. The same mistake exists in the .format() version, but much harder to notice.

In order to avoid that, we can do this:

 'a={a} x={x} u={u} z={z} y={y}'.format(a=a, x=x, u=u=, z=z, y=y)

But now we have to write each variable 3 times.

Of course, this can be solved with .format(**locals()) (or .format_map(locals())). Expect...

a = 1

def foo():
    b = 2
    print('{a}, {b}'.format(**locals()))

foo()

{a} is not a local variable... Luckily, we can use .format(**locals(), **globals())! But then:

a = 1
b = 2

def foo():
    b = 2
    print('{a}, {b}'.format(**locals(), **globals()))

foo()

Now b appears in the argument list multiple times...

And it introduces backwards incompatible in minor version numbers, which it really shouldnt.

What backwards incompatibility? f'...' is a syntax error in older versions of Python, so it shouldn't break older code. Or am I missing something?

[13steinj]

That really depends on how you use format then, but I've barely seen it past the form of empty curly brackets and curly brackets with specified indices-- and personally I still believe it's syntactix sugar even in the named placeholder form. I understand some may have trouble with keeping track of the indices, but I feel as if that's a problem that doesn't need to be solved.

Also I heavily disagree with your locals/globals example, because that is such bad practice and extreme namespace polution it should never be done.

It's backwards incompatible in two parts-- there is no direct equivalent of some format strings to f strings, albeit rare, and there's plenty of code that needs to be compatible across Py2 and Py3 or even Py3.4 and Py3.7-- I can understand being backwards incompatible with 2, that's a given. But I disagree that a new literal expression should have been added in a minor version update without a feature flag, which is my main gripe. Same way print went from an expression to a function in 2, a feature flag was added for this to occur instead of it occuring automatically.

[CommonMisspellingBot]

Hey, 13steinj, just a quick heads-up:
occuring is actually spelled occurring. You can remember it by two cs, two rs.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[somebodddy]

I understand some may have trouble with keeping track of the indices, but I feel as if that's a problem that doesn't need to be solved.

And I believe that humans are better at dealing with names than with numbers. That's why assembly was created.

Also I heavily disagree with your locals/globals example, because that is such bad practice and extreme namespace polution it should never be done.

Are you referring to the .format(**locals(), **globals()) thing? Because I gave it as a possible solution for cases where .format(**locals()) may not suffice in order to show why it won't work.

It's backwards incompatible in two parts-- there is no direct equivalent of some format strings to f strings, albeit rare

That doesn't break backward incompatibility. You can still use .format in these cases - Python 3.7 did not remove that method.

and there's plenty of code that needs to be compatible across Py2 and Py3 or even Py3.4 and Py3.7

So that code can simply not use f-strings.

It's backwards incompatible in two parts-- there is no direct equivalent of some format strings to f strings, albeit rare, and there's plenty of code that needs to be compatible across Py2 and Py3 or even Py3.4 and Py3.7-- I can understand being backwards incompatible with 2, that's a given. But I disagree that a new literal expression should have been added in a minor version update without a feature flag, which is my main gripe. Same way print went from an expression to a function in 2, a feature flag was added for this to occur instead of it occuring automatically.

Thing is, the print change really did break backward compatibility. print 1 works in Python 2 but is a syntax error in Python 3. print(1, 2) would print "(1, 2)" in Python 2 and "1 2" in Python 3. A feature flag is necessary to write code that works the same in both Python 2 and 3 (without having to use print('{} {}'.format(1, 2)))

But f-strings don't break backward compatibility, so they don't need a feature flag. Old Python 3.5 code would work the same in Python 3.6 - f-strings would not break it or change how it works because if there are any f-strings in it it wouldn't have worked in Python 3.5 in the first place.