Arch Linux drops Python 2

Posted Sep 23, 2022 17:54 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Arch Linux drops Python 2 by randomguy3
Parent article: Arch Linux drops Python 2

Not that I've read any of this, but all these python2 scripts - do they PREdate the standard?

Because if so, then the standard is out of touch with reality, not reality out of touch with the standard :-)

And given that a standard requiring the use of python2 or python3 doesn't make sense in a pre-python3 world, I suspect the former not the latter.

(Oh - and even SIMPLE python2 scripts require effort to convert to python3. I have one such 3rd-party script on my system (that I know about ...))

Cheers,
Wol

Arch Linux drops Python 2

Posted Sep 24, 2022 18:11 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (4 responses)

Python 2 has been end of life for over two years (since 2020-01-01), and deprecated for much longer. At a certain point, IMHO it becomes acceptable (for distros, libraries, upstreams, etc.) to say "if you're still on Python 2, then compatibility is your problem. We won't support it anymore, nor will we go out of our way to make life easy for you." As early as 2011, they wrote PEP 404 explicitly spelling out that "[t]he official upgrade path from Python 2.7 is to Python 3." It's not as if people haven't had adequate warning that something like this was eventually going to happen.

Arch Linux drops Python 2

Posted Sep 24, 2022 20:11 UTC (Sat) by malmedal (subscriber, #56172) [Link] (3 responses)

It's not a problem for things I write for myself.

But I've written various programs for non-programmers and sometimes been surprised to find they were still using them many years later. I'll have to avoid python for this use-case.

Best for longevity has been Tcl, I've programs written early nineties that still works almost unchanged. I believe the only changes were
adding "package Tk" and "package BLT" at one point.

Arch Linux drops Python 2

Posted Sep 24, 2022 21:06 UTC (Sat) by cjcox (guest, #60378) [Link] (2 responses)

Waiting for Python 4 to make everyone's Python 3 garbage.... people will sing a different tune then.

Arch Linux drops Python 2

Posted Sep 25, 2022 2:00 UTC (Sun) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (1 responses)

You're going to be waiting a long time. Python 3 happened under an exceptional set of circumstances, and given all the pain it caused, nobody is eager to do it again. It's possible that they will make a Python 4, and it's even possible that it will have some minor backwards incompatibility with Python 3. What it will not have is "You have to rewrite all of your string-processing code from the ground up."

Arch Linux drops Python 2

Posted Sep 25, 2022 2:43 UTC (Sun) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733) [Link]

Python 4 is out. It is called Go.

Only half joking.