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Comment by gridlockd | Hacker News Reader

> The science stack is also the one that starting migrating the earliest.

...but the last to actually finish migrating. In fact, it's still ongoing.

> Given the reach and popularity of Python, of course you will always find plenty of testimonies saying they suffered

Everyone suffered. Everyone had to deal with Python2 versus Python3 bullshit. It's not just about migrating some codebase.

Everyone had to use an inferior version of Python, whether it was because library choice was limited (Python3) or because the language was intentionally left without feature backports (Python2). There was a huge amount of plain "brokenness" in the ecosystem and it was a huge waste of everyone's time.

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> Everyone suffered. Everyone had to deal with Python2 versus Python3 bullshit. It's not just about migrating some codebase.

Updating software version is part of the job. Like creating tests, writing documentation, training newbies and dealing with customers. It's not hard just because we don't like to do it. Porting to Python 3 was not hard for most people. They just really, really didn't want to do it.

I get it. I didn't want to add that on my plate too. Like I didn't want to migrate from my Centos 7, I didn't want to move from mysql to postgres and I didn't want to learn the entire setup of Webpack. 3 times. But "suffering" is a big word that has no place for the vast majority of projects.

Like I said, it is not just about updating software. You can't realistically update all your dependencies by yourself.

You are stuck with a tough choice: Do I start out with Python3 and tons of broken packages? Do I limit myself to Python2 and face a costly migration later on? Do I run the extra cost of supporting both? This the choice you had face for the better part of ten years of migration. Perhaps it's not obvious that all Python-based software was worse for it, but that's what happened.

I'm not talking about some web backend service where most of what you do is trivial stuff. You can write and re-write that in almost anything, it doesn't matter.

Which common parts of the science stack are still partially two-only?

Conda ships on 3.7, and I'd consider it the definitive "scientific" stack.

You're right, most packages appear to be Python3 now. Nevertheless, a lot of client code has been written for the Python2 stack and it's still in widespread use. That stuff won't get migrated soon, if ever. Security doesn't really matter there anyway.

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