Distributors ponder a systemd change

Posted Jun 10, 2016 13:12 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
In reply to: Distributors ponder a systemd change by Cyberax
Parent article: Distributors ponder a systemd change

Python 3 is slowly making inroads, held back by the still not complete fixup of key libraries. Usage stands at around 50% Python 3 and 70% Python 2 (the 20% overlap is code used with both).

Distributors ponder a systemd change

Posted Jun 10, 2016 18:25 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

If everybody refuses to accept that bad things happened in the python2 to 3 transition that caused problems and delayed progress then it's likely that it's just happen again, and again, and again.

There are two ways of screwing something up, or 'making mistakes'

1. No-fault. Based on information available at the time it seemed like it was a good idea. Unfortunately it turned out to have jacked everything up.

2. Fault. Based on information available at the time I knew it was a bad decision, but I thought I could get away with it. Too bad I got caught jacking everything up.

The first one is fine. It can't be avoided. It's part of how technology progresses and dealing with mistakes is just something we have to do. The second one is where you deserve to be removed from a position of trust.

Even if you have people disagreeing with you about choices you make it doesn't mean you fall into category 2, even if they are ultimately right. They just now have proof of their correct decisions. Doesn't mean they will be correct next time, though.

A lot of people see mistakes type 1 and then assign malicious intent in their minds to transform them to type 2, then go cry on the internet. A lot of people see people make mistakes type 1 and then try to erase the mistake because of a confusion that only type 2 mistakes exist, or they fail to realize the distinction.

Personally I like python3. I don't know what they could of done to improve the transition. Alternative seems to be what perl has done.

Distributors ponder a systemd change

Posted Jun 13, 2016 15:32 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

They could have improved the transition by providing backwards compatibility which would have been possible. It would even be possible still. Instead they required everyone to port their libraries and have all dependencies being ported before one can port one's own code. In hindsight clearly not the winning strategy and I wish they'd have used the chance to at least make a couple more steps forward (think graphemes and GIL) when they insisted on backwards incompatibility.