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[Python-Dev] Process to remove a Python feature

Victor Stinner vstinner at redhat.com
Fri May 4 06:56:57 EDT 2018 
2018-05-02 19:24 GMT+02:00 Brett Cannon <brett at python.org>:
> On Wed, 2 May 2018 at 02:12 Victor Stinner <vstinner at redhat.com> wrote:
>> Does it mean that the Python 3 release following Python 2 end-of-life
>> (2020) will be our next feared "Python 4"? Are we going to remove all
>> deprecated features at once, to maximize incompatibilities and make
>> users unhappy?
>
> I don't see why removing features that already raise a DeprecationWarning
> would require bumping the major version number. Personally, I assumed either
> Python 3.9 or 3.10 would be the version where we were okay clearing out the
> stuff that had been raising DeprecationWarning for years.

Sorry, when I wrote "Python 4" I mean "the new Python release which
introduces a lot of backward incompatible changes and will annoy
everyone". It can be Python 3.9 or 3.10, or whatever version
(including 4.3 if you want) :-)

My point is that deprecating a feature is one thing, removing it is
something else.

We should slow down feature removal, or more generally reduce the
number of backward incompatible changes per release.

Maybe keep a deprecating warning for 10 years is just fine.

Extract of the Zen of Python: "Although practicality beats purity." ;-)

Victor
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