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A lot of people still program in Fortran 77. There's no reason you can't be part of the equivalent population for Python.
by dalke 11y ago
A lot of people still program in Fortran 77.
There's no reason you can't be part of the equivalent population for Python.
- AlexeyBrin 11y ago> A lot of people still program in Fortran 77 That's because you can compile Fortran 77 with a modern Fortran compiler and link the old code into your new one without a lot of work. On the other hand I fail to see how you could use the Pyhton 3 interpreter with some old incompatible Pyhton library.
- dalke 11y agoWhile true, it shift the question to, why should a F77 programmer use a new Fortran compiler? Some answers are: it's faster, it runs on new OSes, it has better error messages. Those then become the same answers to the OP's question about shifting from Python 2.x to 3.x.
- AlexeyBrin 11y agoPersonally I quite like Pyhton 3, but the original comparison was flawed simply because with Fortran 77 you can just take your 30-40 years code recompile it with a new compiler and in 99% of cases will work. While with Pyhton 2 to Python 3 there is usually a non trivial amount of work you need to put into migrating an old codebase.
- dalke 11y agoI agree. I have a flawed comparison.
- dagw 11y agoA lot of people still program in Fortran 77 Very few people still program in 77 and only if they really have to. Everybody who has a choice has moved on to at least Fortran 90 and you won't find anybody seriously arguing that Fortran 90 isn't a massive improvement over 77.
- dalke 11y agoThey weren't saying that in 1993. At least, not as I recall from the time. It took a while for that consensus to build. I believe that many of not most Python 3.5 users consider it a massive improvement over Python 2.7. My examples come from the core developers, so is highly suspect to bias.
- dagw 11y agoI recently decided to make an effort and use python 3.5 for a couple of new projects and I've so far found zero things that I consider a practical improvement over doing the same thing in 2.7. Now it's obviously not worse than 2.7, but saying that the new thing is just not worse than the old thing is hardly a great selling point.
- Cyph0n 11y agoOh come on. The language level async support in 3.5 is reason enough to switch imo, not to mention type hinting.
- dagw 11y agoLanguage level async will probably be a reason to switch once there is a bit more support for it and I have a project that really needs it. Same with type hinting, once the tools and libraries are there it might be useful. But as of today and the work I do (mainly data analysis and modelling making heavy use of numpy/scipy and friends) I have yet to find anything in 3.5 that in itself would be a reason for me to switch.
- bitL 11y agoSome people actually used Windows 8 instead of 7. "Higher version number" doesn't equate "better" nor "worth rewriting for".
- collinmanderson 11y agoPart of the company I work for still uses COBOL-74. We're considering re-writing everything in Django / Python 3.