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[Python-Dev] Language Summit Follow-Up

Mark Roberts wizzat at gmail.com
Fri May 30 19:40:18 CEST 2014 
On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 9:30 AM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> On 5/28/2014 6:26 PM, Glyph Lefkowitz wrote:
>
>  I hope it's
>> not controversial to say that most new Python code is still being
>> written against Python 2.7 today;
>>
>
> Given that Python 3 downloads now outnumber Python 2 downloads, I think
> 'most' might be an overstatement. But I think it a moot point.



How can you determine that Python3 downloads actually outnumber Python2
downloads?  It seems that looking at Windows downloads (as I saw in a
thread earlier this month) is fallacious at absolute best.  Linux and OSX
both ship with Python2, and most downloads happen via individual package
management tools.  Even including Python3.4 as a default Python3 doesn't
mean that it's the default Python on the system.

>From my perspective as an engineer and library maintainer: Pypi seems to
indicate an overwhelming number of Python2 usage, and so do the job
requisitions that I've seen.  Furthermore, even Python based libraries for
cutting edge technologies are still written in Python2 and later converted
to Python3.  I just don't understand how we (as a community) can make the
assertion that most "new Python" is written in Python 3.

What I'd really like to see is a Python 2.8 that makes sufficient changes
to Python 2 that writing libraries which cross the boundary between 2 and 3
is relatively easy instead of a painful nightmarish chore.  Because when
push comes to shove, Python 2 support is still infinitely more important
than Python 3.

-Mark
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