6 ms·

I know it does sound a bit bad, but Python 3 is only now catching up. The old PyPy3 that we have is a bit terrible, because it's both old (3.2 only) and slow. S

by fijal 11y ago

I know it does sound a bit bad, but Python 3 is only now catching up. The old PyPy3 that we have is a bit terrible, because it's both old (3.2 only) and slow. Serious push would be necessary in order to get it up to 3.5 and fix the performance problems that we're just not willing to do right now. Once the commercial world catches up to python 3, we will probably too, but people using PyPy are not people who are getting excited to move to python 3, for the most part

_muesli 11y ago
> I know it does sound a bit bad, but Python 3 is only now catching up. Catching up as in PyPy's support for it or as in adoption of the language?
- fijal 11y ago
  catching up in adoption
d0lph 11y ago
Given that Python 3 is nearing a decade old, it is always astonishing that people are still on 2.
- fijal 11y ago
  Well, I'm sorry that it does not look like you would want it to look like, but as a pypy dev this is not my battle - we're there to provide a fast version of the mainstream python and mainstream for now means 2.7. If it changes, we'll adapt
  - tokai 11y ago
    Isn't that change coming now? Most of the most popular libraries have python 3 support now, fedora will soon move to python 3 as default, and there are soon more developer support behind 3 than 2.[0] [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pythonengineering/2016/03/08/python-3-is-winning/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pythonengineering/2016/03/0...
  - mixmastamyk 11y ago
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
    It really is your battle. Major Python projects not supporting Python 3 in 2016 is shameful and holds back the broader adoption of Python 3.
    - jjawssd 11y ago
      You can't blame someone you aren't paying for not implementing a feature you want.
      - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
        They are being paid. $63K, including by me. It's their most funded donation goal. https://sr.ht/qXYC.png https://sr.ht/qXYC.png
        ZenoArrow 11y ago
        > "They are being paid. $63K, including by me. It's their most funded donation goal." From a later comment by a dev... "We spent the py3k budget (almost all of it) on delivering pypy 3.2." Even the link you shared shows the pot is down to $8222. Hopefully that will increase, but I don't know what would be required to get support for later Python versions.
    - fijal 11y ago
      We spent the py3k budget (almost all of it) on delivering pypy 3.2. If someone is very unhappy that it was either too expensive or we didn't deliver enough for the money we received, I can apologize.
      - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
        Would be nice if the numbers on the home page were more representative of the current situation, then.
        fijal 11y ago
        They say we have 8800 left, right?
- azinman2 11y ago
  There isn't a huge amount of win for going to Python 3, but there's plenty of code to change. It's not like Python 3 is 10x faster or has multi line lambdas or something. Plus Python 2 has been updated many times in the past decade so it's not a maintainance based motivation. Personally I code against Python 2. There just hasn't been enough motivation to learn 3 and make sure all my third party libraries work with it.
JelteF 11y ago
I think the last sentence of you really also is in part its own cause. People excited about Python 3, are not using PyPy since it seems like it is not maintained at all. At least adding the same improvements that were added to the 2.7 interpreter would put a bit of confidence in that. Most libraries also support up until CPython3.3, which as far as I know is mostly caused by the fact that the "u" string prefix is allowed again. So just adding that and keeping the core up to date with the PyPy2.7 releases would make it usable. This could very well inspire other devs to add support for the other features that they are missing from later releases CPython3 releases.
- fijal 11y ago
  No, it runs deeper than that. You're mostly reaching out for pypy in case you're running into the wall with performance, one way or another. In that situation the LAST thing you want to do is to move to another language that does not give you answers to that performance problems. People are moving to go, yes, but not to python 3 in that case.
  - thomasahle 11y ago
    But then there are the people who've only started their codebases within the last five years, and so have been Python 3 all along.
    - fijal 11y ago
      Right. And those people are slowly getting to the problems that pypy potentially solves. We are focusing so far on widening the base of what we do, but if there is enough interest, we'll work on pypy3.
      - cookiecaper 11y ago
        Python3 is going to be the default Python in Ubuntu next month. Do you anticipate that having any effect on your perceived user base? FWIW, almost all of the applications I've written in Python over the past 4 years have been Py3. I'd like to use PyPy on them.
eevee 11y ago
"Once the commercial world catches up to python 3..." fwiw, lack of PyPy support is one of the most common reasons I hear for people being leery of Python 3. Of course the people using PyPy aren't the people excited to move to Python 3, if they're effectively mutually exclusive.
bfrog 11y ago
"If you build it, they will come" might apply here. Just to play devils advocate.

by fijal 11y ago

_muesli 11y ago

> I know it does sound a bit bad, but Python 3 is only now catching up. Catching up as in PyPy's support for it or as in adoption of the language?

fijal 11y ago
catching up in adoption

d0lph 11y ago

Given that Python 3 is nearing a decade old, it is always astonishing that people are still on 2.

fijal 11y ago
Well, I'm sorry that it does not look like you would want it to look like, but as a pypy dev this is not my battle - we're there to provide a fast version of the mainstream python and mainstream for now means 2.7. If it changes, we'll adapt
- tokai 11y ago
  Isn't that change coming now? Most of the most popular libraries have python 3 support now, fedora will soon move to python 3 as default, and there are soon more developer support behind 3 than 2.[0] [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pythonengineering/2016/03/08/python-3-is-winning/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pythonengineering/2016/03/0...
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
- Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
  It really is your battle. Major Python projects not supporting Python 3 in 2016 is shameful and holds back the broader adoption of Python 3.
  - jjawssd 11y ago
    You can't blame someone you aren't paying for not implementing a feature you want.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
      They are being paid. $63K, including by me. It's their most funded donation goal. https://sr.ht/qXYC.png https://sr.ht/qXYC.png
      - ZenoArrow 11y ago
        > "They are being paid. $63K, including by me. It's their most funded donation goal." From a later comment by a dev... "We spent the py3k budget (almost all of it) on delivering pypy 3.2." Even the link you shared shows the pot is down to $8222. Hopefully that will increase, but I don't know what would be required to get support for later Python versions.
  - fijal 11y ago
    We spent the py3k budget (almost all of it) on delivering pypy 3.2. If someone is very unhappy that it was either too expensive or we didn't deliver enough for the money we received, I can apologize.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
      Would be nice if the numbers on the home page were more representative of the current situation, then.
      - fijal 11y ago
        They say we have 8800 left, right?
azinman2 11y ago
There isn't a huge amount of win for going to Python 3, but there's plenty of code to change. It's not like Python 3 is 10x faster or has multi line lambdas or something. Plus Python 2 has been updated many times in the past decade so it's not a maintainance based motivation. Personally I code against Python 2. There just hasn't been enough motivation to learn 3 and make sure all my third party libraries work with it.

JelteF 11y ago

I think the last sentence of you really also is in part its own cause. People excited about Python 3, are not using PyPy since it seems like it is not maintained at all. At least adding the same improvements that were added to the 2.7 interpreter would put a bit of confidence in that. Most libraries also support up until CPython3.3, which as far as I know is mostly caused by the fact that the "u" string prefix is allowed again. So just adding that and keeping the core up to date with the PyPy2.7 releases would make it usable. This could very well inspire other devs to add support for the other features that they are missing from later releases CPython3 releases.

fijal 11y ago
No, it runs deeper than that. You're mostly reaching out for pypy in case you're running into the wall with performance, one way or another. In that situation the LAST thing you want to do is to move to another language that does not give you answers to that performance problems. People are moving to go, yes, but not to python 3 in that case.
- thomasahle 11y ago
  But then there are the people who've only started their codebases within the last five years, and so have been Python 3 all along.
  - fijal 11y ago
    Right. And those people are slowly getting to the problems that pypy potentially solves. We are focusing so far on widening the base of what we do, but if there is enough interest, we'll work on pypy3.
    - cookiecaper 11y ago
      Python3 is going to be the default Python in Ubuntu next month. Do you anticipate that having any effect on your perceived user base? FWIW, almost all of the applications I've written in Python over the past 4 years have been Py3. I'd like to use PyPy on them.

eevee 11y ago

"Once the commercial world catches up to python 3..." fwiw, lack of PyPy support is one of the most common reasons I hear for people being leery of Python 3. Of course the people using PyPy aren't the people excited to move to Python 3, if they're effectively mutually exclusive.

bfrog 11y ago

"If you build it, they will come" might apply here. Just to play devils advocate.