Comment by rogerbinns | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rogerbinns | Hacker News Reader

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You didn't hear much from the people using Python 2 to get things done. Here is what happened in that world:

* there were no syntax changes, no new keywords, no deprecations, no coloured functions (http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-y...), no major changes in the standard library etc

* some sore points (eg subprocess & threads) had backported modules with fixes

* python 2.7 continued to be supported by major third party libraries, and they tended to avoid wholesale changes

* binary compatibility and testing are easy (I have a python binary module compiled on 32 bit ARM in 2014 that still loads without recompilation today)

ie python 2 is more than sufficient to solve real world problems, and in the last decade has been stable, debugged, and predictable. You generally don't hear from folks doing this!

Much like C++, Python 3 still has the problem of which subset of language features to use since they affect minimum Python 3.x version, interaction with libraries etc.

The Python 2 -> 3 transition is going to be a case study for a long time. All the intentions and planning seemed right, yet here we are a decade later. There are difficult trade offs between new productivity, stability and predictability, and giving things time to mature, with space to make mistakes. As an example Rust seems to be applying the lessons learned.

The biggest problem with the python 3 rollout was the decisions that were made to arbitrarily deprecate functionality that could have easily been supported.

Just because you add a new way to do something doesn't mean you have to get rid of the old way, too.

Another big mistake that they made was not providing any tooling to automatically convert python2 to python3 code.

> Just because you add a new way to do something doesn't mean you have to get rid of the old way, too.

It kind of does if a central part of the stated philosophy of your language is “There should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it.” [0]

And, sure, you may say backwards compatibility creates a special circumstance that is an exception, but “Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.” [0]

[0] PEP 20, The Zen of Python, https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/

Just how many ways does Python have to format a string? I can think of at least four: fmt % args, fmt.format(args), string.Template, and f"fmt".

Just how many ways are there to make a string constant? single and double quotes, 'single quoted' and """triple quoted""", r"aw" and u"nicode". Probably more.

That does feel like sometimes it's okay to support the old way too.

>Just how many ways are there to make a string constant? single and double quotes, 'single quoted' and """triple quoted""", r"aw" and u"nicode". Probably more.

Those all have different semantics. They aren't the same thing. In python 3, `''` is a unicode string. `b''` is a byte-string, `''''''` is a multiline unicode string, and `r''` is a string where backslashes are handled specially (which is useful for storing regexes and escape sequences in a human readable way).

Each of those is the obvious way to do the thing. Note that the rule isn't "one way to do things" but "one obvious way". Its possible to generate a multiline string by joining a bunch of lines with `\n`, but its more obvious to use the enter key.

>I can think of at least four: fmt % args, fmt.format(args), string.Template, and f"fmt".

Indeed, and most would argue that % formatting should be deprecated (and would have been, if the stdlib logging module didn't rely deeply on it). Format strings and f strings, are approximately equivalent, but strings.Template objects serve a different purpose.

What is the obvious way to write a string constant which does not contain a newline, single quote, or double quote? Should I write it: "this way" or 'this way'? PEP 8 explicitly says there is no preference.

Sure, they have different semantics. But the Zen of Python suggestion isn't usually interpreted to accept, say, a 99% overlap in functionality.

You didn't mention `''` vs `""`. Those have the exact same semantics. And indeed there is no preference. The zen isn't a 100% unbreakable set of rules, its guidelines though, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get out of catching Python violating a document that contains the lines

> Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. > Although practicality beats purity.

The entire zen is self-contradictory, and people are well aware that python breaks the "rules" in some places. That doesn't make the guidelines bad, nor does it make the fact that they guide most of the language and its design less true.

Having 2 ways of defining string constants is useful. And given that practicality beats purity and all, its acceptable to violate the Zen when its sufficiently useful.

My point is that dragonwriter's interpretation of the Zen of Python is not a strong argument against backwards compatibility support. Your comments support my argument, but you seem to have misread them as an indictment of how Python does things.

Here's the thread:

t0mbstone: shouldn't "arbitrarily deprecate functionality that could have easily been supported"

dragonwriter: They should be because of the Zen of Python.

eesmith (me): but Python does support old functionality, so don't place much weight in how to interpret the Zen of Python as it applies to (C)Python development.

I did not say exactly that because I thought the inference was easy to make given the g'parent threads.

Ah, but here's the disagreement:

> but Python does support old functionality

is completely compatible with "should deprecate functionality that could have easily been supported". There should be only one way to do it is correct. Under the zen, you should bias towards deprecation. That doesn't mean deprecate every old functionality always. Indeed if there are compelling reasons not to deprecate something (the maintenance cost truly is zero, it is infeasible, the new functionality only covers a subset of uses, etc.) you shouldn't!

The python mailing list and peps have a good bit of discussion about most backwards incompatible changes from py2 -> 3 (and more recent ones, like adding new keywords).

Yes, and I pointed out one of the reasons for not supporting backwards compatibility in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18819491 . There are many others of course.

It's in a parallel thread because it's a response to t0mbstone's statement that Python developers should have done more work to support backwards compatibility.

I am not saying that Python should "deprecate every old functionality always", but that is what dragonwriter seems to be arguing.

dragonwriter made a different argument about why to drop backwards compatibility, based on an interpretation of the Zen of Python. My response on this thread is to say that that interpretation of the Zen of Python is not valid, or at least weak, given that it does not explain Python's own development history.

Something that I am sure that you agree with.

I don't see where your views disagree with mine.

"could have easily been supported"

While true in the abstract, who will do that support? Python core developers are stretched enough as it is. Why should they volunteer for that?

"not providing any tooling to automatically convert python2 to python3 code"

They did - https://docs.python.org/2/library/2to3.html ("2to3 is a Python program that reads Python 2.x source code and applies a series of fixers to transform it into valid Python 3.x code"). In practice that turned out to not be approach that most people wanted to do, but you can't say they provided no tooling.

What is wrong with LTS releases? That's what python 2.7 is.

> * binary compatibility and testing are easy (I have a python binary module compiled on 32 bit ARM in 2014 that still loads without recompilation today)

I'm confused, are you trying to say a module compiled for Python 2.7 still works with Python 2.7?

I am saying exactly that. Note that it still works across compiler upgrades, libc updates, OS upgrades, python itself updates etc.

By contrast if you compile a module against Python 3.4, it won't even work the same day against Python 3.5. ie the ever changing Python 3.x is more busy work than Python 2.7.

> I am saying exactly that. Note that it still works across compiler upgrades, libc updates, OS upgrades, python itself updates etc.

Of course it does. Just like every other version? Compile something for Python X and it will continue working for Python X, where X is 2.7, 3.1, 3.4, etc etc.

Overall your point seems to be very confused: Modules compiled for a Python version that has had no updates in 15 years still work, and this is somehow relevant to modules working across Python releases? You're comparing apples to oranges here I feel.

> By contrast if you compile a module against Python 3.4, it won't even work the same day against Python 3.5. ie the ever changing Python 3.x is more busy work than Python 2.7.

Sure, that's a different thing. That's across Python versions. As a counterpoint, Tensorflow built for Python 3.6 before 3.7 even began development runs just fine on 3.7.

Of course the C-API evolves, and you'll have to adapt your C-API modules. As an example 3.6 made some changes[1].

1. https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.6.html#build-and-c-api-...

I get it

This isnt really about rationalizing Python2

Its about different branches of a programming language bearing sequential names

Thats the only real UX problem here

Naming candidates: Python++, Python Vision, Python Classic/Python, Python Core

How would that do anything but make it worse? If you want a real world example, how about VB6 versus VB7 and its rebrand as VB.NET (though still called VB7 by its team, and the version numbers remain sequential from there). People will fight that language war for the rest of their lives.

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