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[python-committers] Python 4.0 or Python 3.10?

Petr Viktorin encukou at gmail.com
Wed Sep 26 06:27:00 EDT 2018 
On 9/25/18 9:30 PM, Yury Selivanov wrote:
> What's the current plan for what version of Python we release after 3.9?
> 
> The reason I'm asking this is because I frequently need to refer to
> *that version* of Python in the documentation, especially when I'm
> deprecating APIs or behavior.  Right now I'm saying "Python 4.0"
> implying that 4.0 will be released right after 3.9.
> 
> I've heard multiple opinions on this subject. One of them is that we
> should release 4.0 when we have a major new change, like removal of
> the GIL or introduction of a JIT compiler.  On the other hand, we have
> no estimate when we have such a change. We also don't want Python 4.0
> to be backwards incompatible with Python 3.0 (at least not at the
> scale of 2 vs 3).  So to me, it seems logical that we simply release
> Python 4.0 after Python 3.9.  After all, after 3.9 Python will be
> drastically different from 3.0 and from 2.7.  It sounds better. :)
> 
> Finally, I'm not sure we need a new governance in place to make this
> decision or maybe we can make it now. That's why I'm posting this to
> python-committers to see if core devs already have a consensus on
> this.
> 
> Yury

As someone who's still fighting every day to make people switch from 
"python2" (or "python") to "python3", I'd be very, very happy if I 
didn't have to start telling them to use "python4" instead now. Or 
explaining that the way to launch Python 4 is "python3".
Same story with Python 2020 instead of Python 4.

(And unfortunately, a "py" launcher is not an answer here -- it won't be 
very useful unless it is everywhere, and that will take years in the 
best case.)

I'd much, much rather explain that `sys.version[2]` is not correct, and 
solve the "python310" < "python39" problem.
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