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Slightly tangential, but: I've noticed an interesting parallel between the 2.7 / 3.x partisan divide, and the US political partisan divide. In both cases, as pa

Slightly tangential, but: I've noticed an interesting parallel between the 2.7 / 3.x partisan divide, and the US political partisan divide. In both cases, as partisan passions have increased without relief, there's both A) an increasing unwillingness to agree on basic facts about reality essential to the debate, and B) increasing presumptions of bad faith on the part of their opponents. Examples of A in this discussion: - Disagreements about the degree of library support for 3.x - '' the ease/value of porting from 2 to 3 - '' the rate of industry adoption of 3 for new projects - '' the degree to which people are driven away from Python entirely because of the version situation Examples of B in this discussion: - Claims of paternalism on the part of GVR/ the PSF in pushing 3 - Claims of unreasonable/emotional attachment to 2 by partisan devs - Claims of willful distortion of facts by both sides (see A) - Claims that the writing is on the wall for 2, because usage of 3 is supposedly accelerating - Claims that the writing is on the wall for 3, because it's supposedly taken too long to drive not enough adoption It seems outrageous to suggest that the differences between 2 and 3 are anywhere near as significant as the differences between, say political conservatism and liberalism, and yet the level of partisanship seems nearly the same. How did it come to be like this?

nercht12 10y ago
+1 I like how your comment stands out as being such a rational, non-aggressive observation in all this. I wish I had the answer for you, but I can't figure it out either. shrug Maybe some people are using this as an opportunity to vent the frustrations they've had with using the language (despite it being so loved, and ranked 3rd in most-used according to IEEE), and since there are two versions of the language instead of one, they can more readily create an object doomed for the epitome of their hatred, the sacrificial lamb going to the slaughter (sounds like something from a bizarre school of thought in psychology). You'd think it'd just be easier to let people do what works best for them. I'm sure many expect to take collateral damage from the differences in versions (imagine being a Python 3 fan and having to start working for a company that exclusively uses Python 2 or vice versa), but these people also readily accept working with languages with radically different designs and welcome in copy-cats (like Clojure is to other LISP-like languages). The important thing is that the language does what you need it to do. The name on the download link shouldn't make that much of a difference. The world has adapted to accepting Python 2 and Python 3 regardless of the bickering. There's room for "Python 2.8", even if it is poorly-named. I imagine there are probably dozens of Python 2.8s in existence - they just haven't been noticed by people here on HN. Besides, in about 3 months, we probably won't be hearing more about Python 2.8 anyways unless someone else decides to use it.

nercht12 10y ago

+1 I like how your comment stands out as being such a rational, non-aggressive observation in all this. I wish I had the answer for you, but I can't figure it out either. shrug Maybe some people are using this as an opportunity to vent the frustrations they've had with using the language (despite it being so loved, and ranked 3rd in most-used according to IEEE), and since there are two versions of the language instead of one, they can more readily create an object doomed for the epitome of their hatred, the sacrificial lamb going to the slaughter (sounds like something from a bizarre school of thought in psychology). You'd think it'd just be easier to let people do what works best for them. I'm sure many expect to take collateral damage from the differences in versions (imagine being a Python 3 fan and having to start working for a company that exclusively uses Python 2 or vice versa), but these people also readily accept working with languages with radically different designs and welcome in copy-cats (like Clojure is to other LISP-like languages). The important thing is that the language does what you need it to do. The name on the download link shouldn't make that much of a difference. The world has adapted to accepting Python 2 and Python 3 regardless of the bickering. There's room for "Python 2.8", even if it is poorly-named. I imagine there are probably dozens of Python 2.8s in existence - they just haven't been noticed by people here on HN. Besides, in about 3 months, we probably won't be hearing more about Python 2.8 anyways unless someone else decides to use it.