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Comment by pistacchioso | Hacker News Reader

Of course the push to a new version is strong and a newer version of a product represents its future. I'm not debating this or stating that it is stupid to use the newer version, but when I see someone writing "about time!", I read it like "wow, so I can finally use Python 3 and all its game changing brand new features!", but I don't see anything new than, when programming in Python 2x, makes me think "oh, if only I had used Python 3 here!". For example, when I upgraded to .net 3.5 and I got Linq, I really felt the pain of not having it available when maintaing older code and I finally decided to migrate it all to 3.5 due to the real new features.

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Python 3's improved handling of UTF-8 is by itself worth the upgrade. I've spent more time than I care to recall trying to get Python 2.x to handle Unicode correctly.

I only mention this because it's a visible change that's easy to explain in a few words. The more basic changes are mostly subtle and difficult to describe without direct experience.

> but I don't see anything new than, when programming in Python 2x, makes me think "oh, if only I had used Python 3 here!".

That's not a very sound basis for comparative evaluation. If you have only ever owned a horse, the advantages of owning a car might not be obvious. The horse can go places the car cannot, so the fact that the car gets to other places faster might be overlooked.

Having used Python 3 a bit, there are things I miss in Python 2. Like when I write something quickly and accidentally use integer division (In Py3, 1/2 == 0.5).

> Having used Python 3 a bit, there are things I miss in Python 2. Like when I write something quickly and accidentally use integer division (In Py3, 1/2 == 0.5).

That's been addressed -- in Python 3 there are now two kinds of division and two operator symbols:

    >>> 100 / 9
      11.11111111111111
    >>> 100 // 9
      11

But you have to remember to use the right symbol. :)

Sorry, I should have made that clearer. I know and like the division semantics in Python 3. It's when I go back to Python 2 that I get bitten by 1/2==0.

I know that I can use __future__ to sort that out, but when I'm writing something quickly, I often forget that until I work out why my code is misbehaving.

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