Python 2 now stable [LWN.net]

Python 2 now stable

Posted Dec 11, 2008 2:25 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165)
Parent article: Python 3 is out - now what?

This is good news. It means that we can write Python 2.6 code that will always run on every future release of Python 2. Incompatible point releases are a thing of the past.

Someday Python 3 will be stable enough to write code for, but there's no reason to port any application from Python 2. Libraries will end up getting ported, and useful for new applications. Eventually when 3.x settles down (about 4.0 time, I imagine) it will be time to start writing apps for that stable 3.N. Some sad sacks will be obliged to use Python 3, and keep porting to subsequent 3.x|x<N, because of new libraries that haven't been backported to 2.6. They'll help stabilize it and prepare it for serious use.

This is all according to plan.

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If history is any indication...

Posted Dec 11, 2008 7:10 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Library writers are happy to jump to new version of any language. Months after python 2.5 was released first "python 2.5 only" libraries started to appear - and I fail to see why python 3.0 will be any different. I certainly will not switch all my scripts to python 3.0 right away but if I'll start anything new today - I'll do it with python 3.0: why feel the pain of incompatible switch down the road if you can start with newer version from the beginning?

If history is any indication...

Posted Dec 17, 2008 7:09 UTC (Wed) by kbob (guest, #1770) [Link]

More importantly, why would you want to keep living with Python 2.0's warts? Pythonists are much more sensitive to issues of cleanliness than programmers of most languages *cough*Perl*cough*, so I expect the migration to happen pretty quickly.