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It's so strange to me that data scientists would need to be convinced to move to Python 3. It's superior in every way to legacy Python. I can understand maintai

It's so strange to me that data scientists would need to be convinced to move to Python 3. It's superior in every way to legacy Python. I can understand maintaing Python 3 compatbility for legacy systems if you don't want to have Python 3 as a dependancy, but data scientists will be writing mostly ad hoc code and using Jupyter notebooks. The people around me are not allowed to use Python 2, in fact they're generally required to use the latest version of Python 3. For anyone having trouble with maintaing multiple Python versions, I recommend Pyenv. You can install multiple local versions and switch between them. The selected version then uses the standard commands "python" and "pip", etc. which you can use to make your virtualenv from.

pletnes 9y ago
If you’re doing data science, do consider the anaconda python distribution with conda environments instead. Intel MKL linked numpy gives a lot better performance, and conda can install binary dependencies for libs that are tricky to compile even on linux. Pip packages are just more work and less performance in my experience (~10x)
newen 9y ago
For me, it's as simple as python is not a moving target. Whatever new changes there are in python 3 doesn't affect me since I won't be using any of the new features even if I were to use python 3.
- cup-of-tea 9y ago
  Why on earth would you not use the new features?
  - newen 9y ago
    Tradition? ;) I only use python for deep learning, which is not really that intensive in terms of code. Also most of the code out there for deep learning works on both python 2 and 3. Also, your phrasing invites the question. Why on earth would I use a new feature in a turing complete language? Unless using the new feature results in tangible improvements in my code, I don't see a reason to use it.
    - koshak 9y ago
      I really like this one. “So you already have your turing complete language! What else do you need?”
      - newen 9y ago
        That's not the point. The point is there is no reason to use an extra language feature unless it provides a tangible improvement in the code. In fact, there are lots of reasons not to use an extra language feature that doesn't provide tangible improvements in code, including maintainability, ease of reading code, and portability in python's case.

pletnes 9y ago

If you’re doing data science, do consider the anaconda python distribution with conda environments instead. Intel MKL linked numpy gives a lot better performance, and conda can install binary dependencies for libs that are tricky to compile even on linux. Pip packages are just more work and less performance in my experience (~10x)

newen 9y ago

For me, it's as simple as python is not a moving target. Whatever new changes there are in python 3 doesn't affect me since I won't be using any of the new features even if I were to use python 3.

cup-of-tea 9y ago
Why on earth would you not use the new features?
- newen 9y ago
  Tradition? ;) I only use python for deep learning, which is not really that intensive in terms of code. Also most of the code out there for deep learning works on both python 2 and 3. Also, your phrasing invites the question. Why on earth would I use a new feature in a turing complete language? Unless using the new feature results in tangible improvements in my code, I don't see a reason to use it.
  - koshak 9y ago
    I really like this one. “So you already have your turing complete language! What else do you need?”
    - newen 9y ago
      That's not the point. The point is there is no reason to use an extra language feature unless it provides a tangible improvement in the code. In fact, there are lots of reasons not to use an extra language feature that doesn't provide tangible improvements in code, including maintainability, ease of reading code, and portability in python's case.