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> Here we are in 2019 with no end in sight for Python 2.7 An end is in sight, is coming soon, and it’s sort of concerning that more folks haven’t realized it y

> Here we are in 2019 with no end in sight for Python 2.7 An end is in sight, is coming soon, and it’s sort of concerning that more folks haven’t realized it yet - https://pythonclock.org/ https://pythonclock.org/

StavrosK 7y ago
Seriously, I wonder how many of the people who proclaim "no end in sight" for 2.7 are actually using Python. In the usage I can see, the majority of the ecosystem seems to support 3, and at least a large minority has stopped supporting 2.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  I think they’re both true. People who are “extremely online” and up-to-date with technology developments are all done with Python 2.7 and can say the end is near, but they’re not the only people. There’s an entire dark matter world of businesses still on 2.7, maintained by people who don’t live in the Bay and don’t read Hacker News, and so they’re largely invisible. It will be a long time before they all switch.
  - Bahamut 7y ago
    Even in the Bay Area there are companies still with Python 2.7 with no real migration strategy yet. I maintain several such packages at work myself.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      I don't know, we have a codebase of 100k loc of Python 2.7 and I migrated much of it in two or three weeks myself. I don't think the fact that companies don't spend some time drawing up a strategy is the language's problem.
    - not2b 7y ago
      My company is one of them: plenty of legacy Python and no plans to switch to 3.x that I am aware of.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    What about the people who do read HN and comment here? My reply was to one such comment.
- mnd999 7y ago
  I had to write some 2.7 the other day - a vendor supplied docker image we needed to run a script on only supported that version. Until stuff like that goes away, we’re still gonna be stuck with 2.7.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    In that sense, we're still stuck with FORTRAN, but that's not indicative of the ecosystem at large.
- staticassertion 7y ago
  Most Python code being written today is almost certainly Python 2. Or at least it's close. Google is still Py2 I believe, as is Dropbox. These are big Python shops. I write Python. I don't see an end in sight, yet. There is, however, forward progress.
  - pseudalopex 7y ago
    Writing code compatible with Python 2 and 3 has been possible for over 5 years. Dropbox migrated to Python 3.[1] So did Instagram. [1] https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2019/02/incrementally-migrating-over-one-million-lines-of-code-from-python-2-to-python-3/ https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2019/02/incrementally-migrati...
    - staticassertion 7y ago
      Dropbox migrated their desktop client code to Python 3.
      - pseudalopex 7y ago
        I got the impression from someone at Dropbox that it was more than that. That's all I know, though.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        They just spoke at pycon of having 3? Million LoC using mypy. While some of that is probably using the backports (comment syntax), I'd expect that much of it uses the newer syntax and therefore python3.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - 7y ago
- roel_v 7y ago
  For those of us in the GIS space, 2.7 will be with us for a long time, as it's the only version that is supported by ArcGIS 10.x series. To say that people aren't rushing to ArcGIS Pro (which support 3.x) is quite an understatement, I expect to be writing Python 2.7 code for 5 years at the very least.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Wait, a company is selling a library and only supporting Python 2? And 3 support is a paid tier? Wow.
    - roel_v 7y ago
      No, the previous version is called ArcGIS 10, current version is called Arc Pro.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        Oh, I see. That's too bad :/
cletus 7y ago
No one told me someone had put an arbitrary countdown on the Internet. Well that's completely different. Python may not officially support 2.7 in 2020+. What's to stop someone else backporting security patches and necessary fixes as needed ad infinitum? I think you're underestimating just how little impetus there is to migrate from 2 to 3.
- thanatos_dem 7y ago
  > No one told me someone had put an arbitrary countdown on the Internet. Well that's completely different. No idea what I did to deserve that tone. That site also gives a high level overview of the change, which is why I linked it. > What’s to stop someone else from backporting security fixes as needed ad infinitum? Who? I haven’t heard anyone express a willingness to take up that mantle. “Someone will probably support it by the end of the year” is not the most robust security model.
  - cletus 7y ago
    Sorry, I didn't mean to direct harshness at you. It's more my continued amazement at the Python 3 debacle that drove my response. You can tell a lot about how a project is run and the people running it by their attitude to breaking changes. Java, for example, has taken this very seriously. I mean it also explains why generics are kind of the mess they are but they didn't really have a lot of good choices here. What's more, people can compile older code with newer compilers by setting the language version. Rust seems to be making the right noises. Since 1.0 I'm not sure if there has been any and their plan is to save those for major versions. Perl 6... is an interesting one. Perl 5 actually had a lot of momentum but Perl 6 pretty much drove Perl into irrelevancy. C# did make breaking changes but did it sufficiently early and they benefitted from the second mover advantage learning from Java's mistakes. IIRC C# added generics without type erasure in 2.0? Python 3 was I think almost Python's Perl 6 moment. The only thing that probably saved Python from sliding into history was things like numpy/scipy, ML (eg pytorch), etc. Here's where the GIL doesn't really matter and Python's interface to C modules works really well. For other applications people have (IMHO) started to move away from dynamic languages, something I personally support. The way I like to describe dynamic languages is you end up writing unit tests for spelling mistakes.
tannhaeuser 7y ago
Lots of Google stuff runs on 2.7 (eg. even recently published build scripts) and it looks like Google is going to maintain 2.7 for themselves if necessary rather than porting tons of scripts over to 3. I can't help but agree with their utilitarian approach here.
- dswalter 7y ago
  Honestly, I view Google as a large impediment to python3. If they'd bit the bullet and spent 10MM on transitioning over back in 2012 or so, the perception that 2.7 was still 'the real python' wouldn't have persisted nearly as long. When tensorflow was released (november 2015), it was python2 only!

StavrosK 7y ago

Seriously, I wonder how many of the people who proclaim "no end in sight" for 2.7 are actually using Python. In the usage I can see, the majority of the ecosystem seems to support 3, and at least a large minority has stopped supporting 2.

Analemma_ 7y ago
I think they’re both true. People who are “extremely online” and up-to-date with technology developments are all done with Python 2.7 and can say the end is near, but they’re not the only people. There’s an entire dark matter world of businesses still on 2.7, maintained by people who don’t live in the Bay and don’t read Hacker News, and so they’re largely invisible. It will be a long time before they all switch.
- Bahamut 7y ago
  Even in the Bay Area there are companies still with Python 2.7 with no real migration strategy yet. I maintain several such packages at work myself.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    I don't know, we have a codebase of 100k loc of Python 2.7 and I migrated much of it in two or three weeks myself. I don't think the fact that companies don't spend some time drawing up a strategy is the language's problem.
  - not2b 7y ago
    My company is one of them: plenty of legacy Python and no plans to switch to 3.x that I am aware of.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  What about the people who do read HN and comment here? My reply was to one such comment.
mnd999 7y ago
I had to write some 2.7 the other day - a vendor supplied docker image we needed to run a script on only supported that version. Until stuff like that goes away, we’re still gonna be stuck with 2.7.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  In that sense, we're still stuck with FORTRAN, but that's not indicative of the ecosystem at large.
staticassertion 7y ago
Most Python code being written today is almost certainly Python 2. Or at least it's close. Google is still Py2 I believe, as is Dropbox. These are big Python shops. I write Python. I don't see an end in sight, yet. There is, however, forward progress.
- pseudalopex 7y ago
  Writing code compatible with Python 2 and 3 has been possible for over 5 years. Dropbox migrated to Python 3.[1] So did Instagram. [1] https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2019/02/incrementally-migrating-over-one-million-lines-of-code-from-python-2-to-python-3/ https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2019/02/incrementally-migrati...
  - staticassertion 7y ago
    Dropbox migrated their desktop client code to Python 3.
    - pseudalopex 7y ago
      I got the impression from someone at Dropbox that it was more than that. That's all I know, though.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      They just spoke at pycon of having 3? Million LoC using mypy. While some of that is probably using the backports (comment syntax), I'd expect that much of it uses the newer syntax and therefore python3.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- 7y ago
roel_v 7y ago
For those of us in the GIS space, 2.7 will be with us for a long time, as it's the only version that is supported by ArcGIS 10.x series. To say that people aren't rushing to ArcGIS Pro (which support 3.x) is quite an understatement, I expect to be writing Python 2.7 code for 5 years at the very least.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Wait, a company is selling a library and only supporting Python 2? And 3 support is a paid tier? Wow.
  - roel_v 7y ago
    No, the previous version is called ArcGIS 10, current version is called Arc Pro.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      Oh, I see. That's too bad :/

cletus 7y ago

No one told me someone had put an arbitrary countdown on the Internet. Well that's completely different. Python may not officially support 2.7 in 2020+. What's to stop someone else backporting security patches and necessary fixes as needed ad infinitum? I think you're underestimating just how little impetus there is to migrate from 2 to 3.

thanatos_dem 7y ago
> No one told me someone had put an arbitrary countdown on the Internet. Well that's completely different. No idea what I did to deserve that tone. That site also gives a high level overview of the change, which is why I linked it. > What’s to stop someone else from backporting security fixes as needed ad infinitum? Who? I haven’t heard anyone express a willingness to take up that mantle. “Someone will probably support it by the end of the year” is not the most robust security model.
- cletus 7y ago
  Sorry, I didn't mean to direct harshness at you. It's more my continued amazement at the Python 3 debacle that drove my response. You can tell a lot about how a project is run and the people running it by their attitude to breaking changes. Java, for example, has taken this very seriously. I mean it also explains why generics are kind of the mess they are but they didn't really have a lot of good choices here. What's more, people can compile older code with newer compilers by setting the language version. Rust seems to be making the right noises. Since 1.0 I'm not sure if there has been any and their plan is to save those for major versions. Perl 6... is an interesting one. Perl 5 actually had a lot of momentum but Perl 6 pretty much drove Perl into irrelevancy. C# did make breaking changes but did it sufficiently early and they benefitted from the second mover advantage learning from Java's mistakes. IIRC C# added generics without type erasure in 2.0? Python 3 was I think almost Python's Perl 6 moment. The only thing that probably saved Python from sliding into history was things like numpy/scipy, ML (eg pytorch), etc. Here's where the GIL doesn't really matter and Python's interface to C modules works really well. For other applications people have (IMHO) started to move away from dynamic languages, something I personally support. The way I like to describe dynamic languages is you end up writing unit tests for spelling mistakes.

tannhaeuser 7y ago

Lots of Google stuff runs on 2.7 (eg. even recently published build scripts) and it looks like Google is going to maintain 2.7 for themselves if necessary rather than porting tons of scripts over to 3. I can't help but agree with their utilitarian approach here.

dswalter 7y ago
Honestly, I view Google as a large impediment to python3. If they'd bit the bullet and spent 10MM on transitioning over back in 2012 or so, the perception that 2.7 was still 'the real python' wouldn't have persisted nearly as long. When tensorflow was released (november 2015), it was python2 only!