Comment by nwallin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nwallin | Hacker News Reader

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I work for Esri, but I specifically work on ArcGIS Pro which has shipped with python 3.x for quite a while. (since before I joined the company anyway)

ArcGIS 10.2.1 comes with 2.7.5, [1] and is very, very old. It was released in Jan 2014 and hit EOL in 2019. [2]

All not-EOL versions of ArcGIS Server support python 3.x. But if you're using ArcMap, upgrading to a later version will not move you to python 3.x: you'll have to migrate to ArcGIS Pro for that. (note for the unaware: this is not a "well just buy the more expensive thing" post. ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro share the same license.) I recommend migrating to Pro for this and other reasons, but I understand that a lot of orgs don't have that on their roadmap.

Out of curiosity, is there a technical reason why your org isn't using a supported version, or is it an "ain't broke" situation? I'd ask migrating to ArcMap to Pro, but if you're on 10.2.1... yeah.

[1] https://support.esri.com/en/technical-article/000013224

[2] https://support.esri.com/en/Products/Desktop/arcgis-desktop/...

Hang on a second, you consider Jan 2014 to be "very, very old"? Commercial software often has dependencies on libraries going back decades.

A finished software product that gets regular updates is old by the time it turns 7, I'd agree on that.

Dependencies on libraries is a different story, there's only so many ways you can implement a functionality, and some of these happen to be decades old!

It can be "very, very old" in its context. If a new release comes out every year, support duration is 5 years and you're 2 years past EOL, I'd agree that the software can be called "very, very old".

And that's where things go off the rails. A release that is only supported for five years is a hobby project.

The kind of software projects that make the world go round continue past the lives of their original authors and can easily span decades. 5 years is just enough for the original shake-out.

Yes, ok, thanks, the Python foundation will immediately spend a lot of time and money to support releases for 2 decades. How could they not know!? /s

That out of the way, you're right that some niches require a lot longer cycles, but it's the big big biiiig advantage of FOSS. Downstream can maintain it for as long as they wish. As you said things got shaken out by the community for free basically, and if some serious software is so so serious that upgrading and retesting/certifying is somehow more expensive than trying to airgap an EOLed pile of libs (while at the same time it needs support) then the stakeholders can do it.

No sarcasm needed, Red Hat happily invests time and money in supporting it until 2024.

That might have been an easy eay to provide upstream releases too, had the Python maintainers not been intent on using deprecations as an instrument to get the community moving.

That strategy doesn't work very well however, as we've seen when TLS 1.2 was held off from Python 2.

I mean i am sure we would do that if any of the user company would want to pay the price for that. None of them want. You probably multiply the price by at least 10 (i would say add at least +1.5 to the multiplier for every year of support and that is probably highly conservative).

Come back when they are ready to pay for that.

> A release that is only supported for five years is a hobby project.

I believe what you are trying to say is that you chose the wrong tool for the job. It is really condescending to lash out on other projects like that just because they don't share the same needs as you. They owe you nothing. Python is free and open source, just fork the damn language spec and support it yourself.

The discussion is about ArcGIS, not Python.

The discussion is about a specific version of ArcGIS that only supports a version of python that reached its end of life, so I beg to differ. My point stands: if you had the need for a really long supported tech, in the order of decades, choosing a tech based on a dependency that had a clear life span of 5 years or so was a poor choice. If, still, you need that, you can support it yourself, by forking your own version, but python owes ArcGIS nothing.

>A release that is only supported for five years is a hobby project.

Sure, I'll let my Product Lead know that we're selling toys that only skiddies, not telecos NOCs use.

Totally agreed, but check upthread for a comment that literally says this tool is unsuitable for work where lives depend on it. And for telcos that's pretty much a given.

Having worked in a number of Telco NOCs, that's probably not the best example for the point you're trying to make.

> A release that is only supported for five years is a hobby project.

and how much are you paying for support?

It looks like probably around $3000/year.

https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-online/buy

> The kind of software projects that make the world go round continue past the lives of their original authors and can easily span decades

The name on the software might remain unchanged for decades. That doesn't mean that the software remains identical for that time.

Are you really accusing ArcGIS of being a "hobby project"?

Yes, the technical reason was outlined above. Our Big Software Vendor in the field depends on specifically the products of 10.2.1. They're extraordinarily clear on that.

So I assume that the geodatabases, the address locators, and such are all the sticking points in terms of the "products" of ArcMap. I suspect that sometimes their software dips into that specific version of arcpy, as well.

Until the vendor hops, we cannot hop. It's a problem that will be eventually fixed, but I bring it up because many people here at HN think of greenfield development often, and also in industries where tons of iteration are met with approval.

That sounds very familiar. My company deployed a patch so that their webmaps continues working after flash became end of life. We still use 10.2.1 for most things. Thankfully I have ArcGIS Pro on my laptop. I had to move heaven and earth to get it.

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