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Comment by fwip | Hacker News Reader

You can keep running Python 2 just like you keep your COBOL systems running, nobody's gonna stop you except common sense.

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IBM does quite a good job of making sure that COBOL is supported long term with all needed updates for many many years to come. Python 2 is not in that position.

You mean, IBM does quite a good job of making sure IBM COBOL is supported long term. They are maintaining their compiler, which is exactly what PSF is doing. They are maintaining their interpreter, which is Python 3.

The GP post missed the fundamental difference between keeping COBOL running and keeping Python 2 running. Python 2 was also PSF's interpreter. IBM handling a COBOL upgrade like PSF handling the 2-3 transition would be unacceptable.

Would PSF exponentially increasing support and maintenance costs for Python 2 into multimillion dollar contracts and bundling over-margined hardware in with the bundle to make it more of an IBM-like transition help?

Yep, someone has to pay in one way or another like Red Hat customers on 7, but to say Python has near the life cycle of COBOL is just disingenuous. Old COBOL still runs, but Python 2 programs will not. It really shows what the achievement languages like COBOL, RPG, and Fortran are in terms of longevity and migration.

> but Python 2 programs will not

Er, why not? It's not like there's some kill switch in Python 2 that will make it stop working after January 1st, 2020. If it works now, then it'll still work, you're just not guaranteed fixes anymore. At least, not for free. As stated in the article, paid support options exist from several vendors.

Any software in the modern era that isn't upgraded for new OSes or security patched is dead.

Ok, sure. To you, maybe. But that's a far cry from saying they won't run anymore.

You can still run 1960's code today for both COBOL and Fortran - I suspect some Fortan 2 oddities might not work I am thinking of the sense commands

Probably, but the care the Fortran folks take to not break anything but still evolve a modern language is amazing.

> IBM

> PSF

These are two very different kinds of institutions!

People who need COBOL support from IBM are paying a lot of money. Giant piles of money can get you many kinds of help that people won't volunteer to do for free... among them, maintaining ancient software in amber.

If you need Python 2 support and you are willing (and able) to pay the kind of money that IBM's customers pay for COBOL support, you'll be OK. For a start, Red Hat (aka also IBM!) shipped Python 2 in RHEL 8, which means they'll be supporting it until 2029 at the earliest.

To circle back to the original point, no COBOL committee would break commonly running COBOL programs like the Python 2-3 transition. Using COBOL in an example with Python is just wrong. Maybe the break is justified, maybe it isn't, but some languages do a lot of work to make sure things continue to work.

Right, but in engineering it's kind of expected to get support for a version for at least 60 years. Software engineering is just really weird in that it moves so fast and nobody seems to care to break things.

What free things are supported for 60 years in engineering applications?

Name one.

Fairly ancient Fortran compiles OK in open source compilers. Not quite 60 years old, yet, but it'll be there soon.

It's already >65 years old. The 65th birthday was this summer 2019.

They (in engineering general) aren't expected support something free though. Putting it another way: You can get you support with Python2, if you pay.

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