Debating a "transitional" Python 2.8

Posted Jan 2, 2014 4:13 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
Parent article: Debating a "transitional" Python 2.8

>While perhaps a bit overwrought, jgmitzen's point is that supporting 2.x in the Python ecosystem is taking time and energy away from 3.x—to the detriment of the language.
Well, so does maintaining strict backwards-compatible ABI in Linux.

Python developers should ask themselves what's more important to them: designing a new language or doing something that is useful for the developer community?

Stable ABI

Posted Jan 2, 2014 14:40 UTC (Thu) by vstinner (subscriber, #42675) [Link] (1 responses)

> Well, so does maintaining strict backwards-compatible ABI in Linux.

"Since Python 3.2, a subset of the API has been declared to guarantee a stable ABI."
http://docs.python.org/3/c-api/stable.html

Before Python 3.2, no effort was put to maintain the stability of the ABI.

With Python 3.3, there is no more narrow or wide build for Unicode strings, but I don't know the impact on the ABI.

Stable ABI

Posted Jan 2, 2014 14:46 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

I'm talking about trying hard not to break end-users' programs. Python hadn't tried to do that, Python designers gleefully went on and broke compatibility. Is it a wonder that most developers simply decided to wait and see?