Comment by sandGorgon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandGorgon | Hacker News Reader

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I think this is fundamentally because of the Python philosophy around one-true-way to do things (something that's open to interpretation given the number of string functions that are around). IMHO, the Python 3 vs Python 2 split is a phlisophical rift rather than a technical one. There is no real technical reasons why print and print() cannot coexist.

In all reality, Python 2 and Python 3 are completely differently languages at this point. Communities/companies/projects that have adopted Python 2 do not care about anything that Python 3 gives them. Take for instance Flask - to maintain compatibility with the WSGI spec they have to maintain Python 2 compatibility indefinitely. Less than 30% of all software is compatible with Py3 and any new software releases are built on top of Python 2 - yes I'm looking at Tensorflow.

I'm very doubtful that Python Foundation is going to drop support by 2020. Quite simply - a highly funded Python company (like anaconda) can create a fork.

The only way this situation can be fixed is Python 4 with co-existence of Python 3 and Python 2 functions.

As an aside, this:

> the Python philosophy around one-true-way to do things

I've always thought to be a total joke. There's been like 5 different modules each for string interpolation, subprocess management, and argument parsing. Heck, I thought I was on top of which was in vogue and apparently just two weeks ago there's a new "one true way" to do string interpolation.

I came across this recently:

> Barry Warsaw, one of the core Python developers, once said that it frustrated him that "The Zen of Python" (PEP 20) is used as a style guide for Python code, since it was originally written as a poem about Python's internal design. [0]

I did a quick search for a little more background but didn't find anything. I'd be curious to hear more.

[0]: https://github.com/amontalenti/elements-of-python-style#a-li...

I think this needs to be the responsibility of things like PEP rather than the actual language. Otherwise you break old code every time you find a better way.

I always thought that was mocking with Perl, and nothing else.

Then my analysis that it is a total joke is correct ;)

Looks like so.

Almost all the lines on the Zen of Python are inversion of the Perl guidelines. Some with the exact same phrasing, just with the antonyms of the original.

> yes I'm looking at Tensorflow.

Check the very first issue that was reported: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/1

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