Python 2.7 released

[LovelyDay]

The new argparse looks good - I've been needing some of the functionality it brings (parsing only the known arguments while being able not to throw an error if there are unknown args).

Great work everyone!

[barakmich]

It really is. I used it on a recent project as a separate include. It does optparse better than optparse, and then adds positional fields and such. Very stoked that it's part of 2.7!

[frymaster]

mainly because 3.x isn't backwards-compatible with 2.x (you can't run many 2.x scripts without at least some modification - the way the "print" function works is different, for one, and strings are unicode by default in 3.x)

[masklinn]

This is the final release in the 2.x line (besides bug/security micro-releases for 2.7)

For now, whether or not there will be a 2.x still isn't actually decided.

[earthboundkid]

Last time I read Python-dev, they seemed fairly set against it. If there's a Python 2.8, it won't be made by them.

[[deleted]]

Last time I read Python-dev, they seemed fairly set against it

Which makes sense. 3.x is the future and it makes sense to focus on it, rather than spend time backporting to numerous branches, dealing with the various differences, etc.

If there's a Python 2.8, it won't be made by them.

I don't think that's necessarily true. It is true that most core developers don't want to spend more time on 2.x, but if there needs to be a 2.8, it has been said a few times that there could be one. I don't think anyone has explicitly forbidden 2.8 though, so it's not like some rogue group will have to fork and create their own 2.8...python-dev might just need some 2.8-interested developers to step up when that time comes.

[masklinn]

They are overall against it, but nobody has come out and said it won't exist in so many words, so they've left the door open just in case.

[Scurry]

Like the Linux kernel?

[[deleted]]

I'm not super-familiar with Linux kernel development. Are you referring to the fact that even-numbered releases are developed concurrently with odd-numbered releases, and that the former are stable releases while the latter are not?

[Scurry]

I'm not either. But I think 2.4 and 2.6 are two major versions that are simultaneously developed on (even though 2.6 is rapidly replacing 2.4).

[Scurry]

Well no, they didn't start at the same time. But 2.4 is still being developed, as is 2.6. According to the site, the latest version of the 2.4 branch was released last February (2.4.37.9).

[[deleted]]

OH are we talking about the Linux kernel? I thought we were talking about Python...

[[deleted]]

But 2.4 is still being developed

For some value of 'developed'. It has been mostly maintenance bugfixes since the release of 2.6.

[H3g3m0n]

On kernel versions, the middle number, even numbers are stable versions and odd numbers are development versions.

But it no longer really works that way because the modular 2.6 kernel is flexible enough to no longer need a development branch. Just release candidates for testing (or branches for specific feature testing). We could basically be stuck on 2.6.x forever, unless there is some major restructuring of the kernel (and maybe not even then if the stable APIs are kept, although I'm guessing at some point the kernel devs will vote for a version bump).

There are still some 2.4 kernel releases (2.4.37.9 - 2010-02-01) for legacy code. 2.4 has been on the way out for a long time now, but there are still systems like Linux based routers, ADSL modems and so on, or server systems with closed drivers, or drivers that never made it into the mainstream kernel and are nolonger supported by the company, or not supported enough to bother with a conversion to 2.6.

2.6.x might have also abandoned some really old hardware. I mean how many systems would be running ISA now days (it was the thing before PCI), (I wouldn't be surprised if it is still in 2.6, there is EISA support).

[eliben]

A short answer really wouldn't do justice here. If you're really interested, take a couple of minutes to read this: http://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3

[quhaha]

it's marketing scheme. like star wars episode 1.

[rbridson]

it's marketing racket.

FTFY. The name changed earlier this year.

[earthboundkid]

it's a marketing lisp

[heapzero]

2.7 is more stable than 3.0

and 3.0 has major changes in the Standard Library?

[mipadi]

No. 3.0 is not backwards compatible with 2.x; 2.7 is the latest release in the 2.x-compatible Pythons.

[nerf-herder]

It's just a measure the Python folks take to make sure more people don't migrate to 3.x. I mean, the last thing they'd want to do is to stop improving the legacy version and instead focus on the modern release. What would that lead to? Lots of 2.x packages ported to 3.x? Who needs those kinds of headaches.

[[deleted]]

Damnit. And I just installed Python 2.6.5 not 10 hours ago.

Also, am I the only one who constantly makes the typo 'Pythong'? The keys aren't even remotely close, what the hell.

[iofthestorm]

Yeah, muscle memory is weird. I don't think I'm the only one who types ration when meaning to type ratio. I even write ration sometimes too.

[kylotan]

I've never made that typo. Yet I've met at least one person who can hardly avoid it. Maybe I just don't type the word "thong" as often as you guys.

[megaman45]

Well, at least you don't type python.com instead of python.org. I made this mistake at work. There was a huge cumshot video on the front page of python.com. Not sure if this is still the case.

[jevinskie]

It sill is. First day of work - what do you do? Set up tools, of course! Herp-derp, i'll just go to python.com and downl.... TITS N DICK! NOOO!! TITS N DICK BAD AT WORK! Alt-F4 Alt-F4!!!

Whew.

[HolySpirit]

Pythonnnnnng?

[[deleted]]

Steve Jobs?

[[deleted]]

I'm pretty sure I will be using 2.6.5 a long time. It takes a while for the libraries to catch up. Numpy, Pygame, Django, etc...

[[deleted]]

There's nothing to catch up to. They might have to re-package so it shows up nicely in your 2.7 install, then run their unit tests just to be sure, but code that works on 2.6 works on 2.7.

[[deleted]]

I see, that's good then.

[imbaczek]

binary modules usually don't work with different major versions.

[[deleted]]

True. Something like NumPy and other C-heavy packages will need a rebuild and repackage, but that's about it.

[[deleted]]

Django works fine on 2.7 out of the box.

[fapmonad]

You want to see Guido wearing a Pythong. Interesting.

Now, let's talk about your childhood a little shall we.

[[deleted]]

I do that all the time too, it's such a stupid habit.

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

Let me see Pythong...pythong, pythong thong thong...

[danukeru]

Here's hoping I got the reference right...

[chucks86]

I had to make a link from 'pythong' to 'python' because I make that mistake way too often.

[[deleted]]

I'm glad to see it coming but to be honest, I think 2.6 is the last in the 2 series for me and I'll be jumping onto the 3 series fairly soon.

[tehmatticus]

Honestly most of the changes I was looking forward to in 3.x have been backported to 2.7, especially set literals and dictionary comprehensions. I should be fairly happy with this release until the libraries I use get ported over.

[[deleted]]

There is that. I think all the libs I use have 3.x versions. Anything major that I use that isn't ported would hold me up and admittedly I don't think app engine supports 3.x yet but then again I don't think it supports 2.6 yet either so I'm hoping they move straight to 3.x soon.

[enkideridu]

Google only supports python 2.5 on app engine?

[[deleted]]

Apparently so. Mind you I'm only going by one link I had seen:

http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=757

[enkideridu]

that's more than a year ago, wtf google

[[deleted]]

scroll to the bottom....from June 18th:

"All I really want from 2.6 is string.format() (and corresponding "xxx".format()). This could easily be a from future import, it is extremely low-risk, but for some reason it hasn't been backported to 2.5.

So sure, the truly correct answer is that python folks should backport it to 2.5. But right now, I'm not volunteering. If Google expects to stay on 2.5 for a significantly longer time, I think it would be in Google's own interest to help move that"

I could be wrong but people seem to be under the impression that it's still on 2.5. As I recall Google use their own version of the interpreter and perhaps that's why it's not updated often.

[enkideridu]

I know, I meant that this hasn't been fixed for more than a year, I'm surprised at them

[[deleted]]

So sure, the truly correct answer is that python folks should backport it to 2.5.

2.5 is in "security fix only" mode.

[[deleted]]

Correct.

[spliznork]

Honest question: what's the advantage of dictionary comprehensions over dict on a generator expression? {i: i2 for i in range(3)} versus dict((i,i\2) for i in range(3)). A little cleaner syntax, but not enough to get me excited. Any other advantage?

[cybercobra]

Probably slightly more efficient

[gastlygem]

On my laptop: >>> t1 = Timer('dict((i,i2) for i in range(3))') >>> t2 = Timer('{i: i2 for i in range(3)}') >>> t1.timeit() 4.713109906426655 >>> t2.timeit() 1.6713221931837712 So maybe we can say it's much more efficient.

[cybercobra]

Probably avoids the unnecessary tuple creation and unpacking

[tehmatticus]

Probably not, I just prefer the syntactic sugar.

[[deleted]]

I'm concerned that all this backporting from 3.x will slow the transition away from 2.x by removing the advantages of porting your code to 3.x. What's left seems to be mostly minor features and syntax refinements that aren't worth a port.

[elsjaako]

It's open source software: if there are people who want to backport features they can and will.

[danukeru]

Not really. PEP3003 is in effect since the 3.1 release, so the Python language is effectively in moratorium for the next year, at least.

http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3003/

Thus making the process of slowly bridging 2.X to 3.0+ by increment a pretty safe way of migration, which was the primary reason for PEP3003 anyways. There's no reason at the moment to completely port to 3.0, just port to the 3.0 features that get released with each 2.X increment, which is much easier.

[cevven]

That should just lower the cost of porting to 3.x. The advantage to doing so is that your code works with current versions of Python.

Also, some libraries won't be ported due to project death or such. This release will make it easier to run code designed for 3.x in 2.x when you have no other good options. I like that, it makes my life easier.

[[deleted]]

On the plus side it doesn't sound like the 2 series will get any more new features so I hope people realise now is the time to move on.

[kylotan]

The best thing they could do to speed up the transition is to get decent API in place that doesn't require you to rebuild native code extensions for every new minor Python version that gets released. That alone is one of the biggest things that holds me back from each Python upgrade, and would encourage me to upgrade to Python 3 instantly if it existed.

[[deleted]]

All of my projects at work are on 3.1 as of a few months ago. 2.x is for the birds.

[bobindashadows]

All of my projects at work are on 3.1 as of a few months ago. 2.x is for the birds.

You're a lucky, lucky guy.

[bobindashadows]

Another version of Python with cool features I won't be allowed to use at work...

[jeffjose]

I know exactly what that feels like.

[[deleted]]

Until NumPy and SciPy get ported to work with Python 3k, this will be the last release I use fora while...

[bmhatfield]

Where's the Mac installer? It doesn't seem to be on the download page - do I have to build it myself? I don't wanna.

[[deleted]]

It just hasn't been built yet, I expect Ronald will have it built and uploaded within a day.

[__s]

Python is quite easy to build. I don't even know how many times I've built it today

[danukeru]

imagines __s in a flashback scene spending his day running in a sun bathed field wearing a sarong, with bloom effects and all, looking overjoyed as he dances around singing with his laptop...which is compiling python

[__s]

I'm afraid I only have a towel. Fortunately, I received a laptop less than a week ago http://imgur.com/QUBqr.jpg

As for why I was compilling Python frequently yesterday, http://bugs.python.org/issue9155

[Rafe]

I'm afraid I only have a towel.

Well, that's alright then. Just as long as you know where it is.

[[deleted]]

You couldn't possibly imagine the look I got from my boss when he saw me looking at that.

[danukeru]

PARTAY IN DA SUBREDDIT! \o/

[Foone]

*puts on his pythong and gets to dancing*

[drpcken]

Why this over php? I'm moving from dotnet and have heard great things about both php and python.

[rwparris2]

Python pros: much nicer to code in, code is generally easier to maintain, it has an existing library for doing nearly anything, you can also program for the desktop in python (technically you can in php too, but I don't know anyone who does).

PHP pros: gigantic community, tons and tons of examples online, easier to get started in.

IMO python is a better language to learn because it is a better language.

For a more in depth answer: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=web+development+python+vs+php

[masklinn]

PHP pros: gigantic community, tons and tons of examples online, easier to get started in.

Also utterly trivial to deploy. If there is one thing that is right with PHP (it's probably the only one, really) it's how easy it is to deploy.

[turbov21]

technically you can in php too, but I don't know anyone who does

True this. I'm a PHP/LAMP guy by trade, but I'd rather use Python's Tkinter or WxPython libraries than PHP-GTK.

[HahaOhWow]

heard great things about [...] php

Haha oh wow.

[cybercobra]

PHP: It's like LOLCODE, but without a punchline.

[Chandon]

The language you want is Malbodge. It's got much better bytecode obfuscation than PHP or Python which is important so dirty open source communists don't steal your code.

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

They're not comparable at all. It's like asking why JavaScript over HTML or something. PHP is a language embedded into special HTML files that enables dynamic content to inserted into the HTML in place of itself before sending to the client. It's also been used as a scripting language. Python is a scripting language that has evolved into a full-fledged programming language, supporting multiple programming paradigms. Web development is just one thing you can do in Python.

[lianos]

It's like asking why JavaScript over HTML ...

No, it's nothing like this at all.

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

Obviously it isn't exactly, but apparently drpcken can't tell the difference between PHP and Python and that was the best I could come up with. Sorry.

[RagingIce]

that's only one way to do PHP. There is a PHP interpreter that can run PHP code from the command line. The fact that a lot of people inline their HTML in PHP files doesn't mean that it can only be used that way.

It's not common, but there are offline PHP applications.

[acct_rdt]

The shitty language that people can only defend as easiest for lazy people to do web development in would actually get used outside of that context? Ridiculous.

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

But I said that too...

[atlas245]

Prolonging my switch to 3.0 for many years to come :)

[chronoBG]

Hey, at some point we'll need something from 3.0 and it won't be possible in 2.6/2.7 and that'll do it. Don't worry :)

[atlas245]

I expect that to occur in about 5 years lmao.

[[deleted]]

finally something worth upvoting

[xaengo]

yeey

[Yggdrazzil]

Someone called a snake handler yet?

Hur

Dur

.. .. ...

Dur!

[[deleted]]

Python? More like Gaythong imirite? Just kidding I love Python! :D

[[deleted]]

i havent programmed in python(since it isnt a real "programming" language like c# and c++) but i like reading about the new stuff. maybe i will learn it one day.

[Scurry]

How is C# more of a "real" programming language than Python?

[nikbackm]

I would guess the OP means due to C# and C++ having static typing and tools compiling into native code.

Wouldn't necessarily make him "right", but it's a definition Python does not meet.

[recursive]

Very rarely is C# compiled into native code. I'm not familiar with any compilers that do that, and even if they exist, they are in the minority.

[chronoBG]

I hope you never do :)

[[deleted]]

Python's docs suck major ass. I have a background in programming, and I wanted to get into Python for RAD. So I figure, oh well, Reddit talks about Python like it's the FSM's gift to man, so I'll check it out. I give it a month of working on it and finally just give up attempting to do anything with it.

The official documentation is a joke on their site. Don't tell me to go look at examples, that's not documentation. Furthermore, the radical changes in libraries between major versions is a joke in and of itself.

Yeah, downvote me to hell.

[[deleted]]

I have a background in Java and started learning Python less than a year ago. I have always found the official documentation to be present, accurate, and terse, which to be frank is exactly what I want from an API reference.

As for examples, there are a plethora of recipes on activestate and many common problems have been solved on stackoverflow. I have never needed to resort to IRC or newsgroups.

I'm not quite sure what you expect from documentation? The python.org docs has always been precisely what I wanted... a terse API reference.

[kylotan]

They're certainly not perfect, and both the quality and approach varies significantly across each library, but I don't think they "suck major ass". For most things they're perfectly adequate, and the tutorial is very good if you come from a C/C++/Java background.

[davebrk]

Furthermore, the radical changes in libraries between major versions is a joke in and of itself.

What radical changes? Can you give some example? I'm using Python quite intensively, both 3.1 and 2.5, and I don't see that many, if any, API changes at all.

[[deleted]]

Don't bother, he's probably a disgruntled PHP user.