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You have to invest some time in understanding how strings (byte strings and unicode) work in Python. I put this off for way too long. After A TON OF PAIN I dec

You have to invest some time in understanding how strings (byte strings and unicode) work in Python. I put this off for way too long. After A TON OF PAIN I decided to put the time in to watch the talk "Pragmatic Unicode, or, How do I stop the pain?"[0] by Ned Batchelder and it all just clicked. Now, I make unicode sandwiches like a boss. [0] https://youtu.be/sgHbC6udIqc https://youtu.be/sgHbC6udIqc

dataflow 7y ago
Uhm I think you misunderstood the problem. I already understand Unicode, and I can handle Unicode just fine as far as the facilities are there, in both Python 2 and Python 3 -- individually. The places where I have trouble are (1) where either or both languages do something nonsensical, (2) where the facilities just don't seem to be there (sys.argv?), (3) where there are bugs (try writing binary to stdout with IDLE open), or (4) where there seems no reasonable way to write code that behaves correctly in both languages without making your own little translation layer. Like as an example for #1, "a".encode('unicode_escape') == b'a' makes no sense. Why should escaping a string suddenly turn it into bytes? I never even specified an encoding for those bytes. And similarly why should "a".decode('unicode_escape') be an error? It makes perfect sense. What they did looked nice in theory (no implicit conversions between bytes and strings etc.) but IMHO they practically completely wrecked strings in Python 3.
- dataflow 7y ago
  Also, I think the facilities are lacking for case-insensitive comparisons in Python 2, so I guess this is one thing they improved. Still don't know how to do it "correctly" when writing Python 2-compatible code.
  - mgkimsal 7y ago
    > Still don't know how to do it "correctly" when writing Python 2-compatible code. Does writing python 2 code stop being 'worth it' at some point? If so, where is that point? It sort of sounds like you're already there. There's still people using P2 at least in part because of all the hoops people are jumping through to keep supporting it, no? I'm not a professional python dev, so it doesn't impact me as much as some of my colleagues, but 'backwards compatible' issues crop up in other platforms/langauges as well. Wordpress might be the biggest example in PHP. They've kept a minimum target language which is far behing 'current' or even 'currently supported', and it's been a catch 22. Hosts keep supporting PHP 5.4, for example, far later than they 'should' have, because people kept writing new stuff targeting PHP 5.4. WP 5 was, alas, a missed opportunity to target PHP7 as a minimum. :/
    - dataflow 7y ago
      > Does writing python 2 code stop being 'worth it' at some point? If so, where is that point? It sort of sounds like you're already there. How do you know I'm there? If nothing else I still have my own previous Python 2 code that I've spent time on and that's useful to me! Why would I just throw them all away or waste massive amounts of time rewriting them into Python 3? Is my goal supposed to be to please the masses here? Honestly that's sufficient reason already. But if you want a more "standard"/politically-correct response: Python 2 is still being supported, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS literally only just reached EOL last month and can be found in the wild, Python 3 support is lagging in a lot of places (e.g. PyPy is still on 3.5, although I'm just using it as an example; I don't use it much), and I still come across Python 2-based tools and packages once in a while. So I guess the answer to your question is it "stops being worth it" when I stop coming across situations where I'd regret abandoning Python 2. > There's still people using P2 at least in part because of all the hoops people are jumping through to keep supporting it, no? "Because" is an odd way to put it... it's true that if they didn't support P2 then people would use P2 less, but people use it because it benefits them, not "because it's supported". I mean, you're also alive "at least in part because" of all the hoops people jump through to grow and bring food within your reach, but I doubt your conclusion is that this should stop being the case... > They've kept a minimum target language which is far behind 'current' or even 'currently supported', and it's been a catch 22. What I don't understand is why are people supposed to keep abandoning good software just because someone made something shiny and declared it "unsupported"? I hate this "you have to like my updates... or I will force you" attitude that every organization seems to have nowadays. People are trying to solve their own problems, not please the leader they're following. > Hosts keep supporting PHP 5.4, for example, far later than they 'should' have, because people kept writing new stuff targeting PHP 5.4. I mean, this isn't even the same situation? I'm not targeting Python 2 or introducing a dependency on it generally. I try hard to keep my code both Python 3 and Python 2 compatible. So the decision as to whether to move on or not is left to the client (which is often myself) and there's no obstacle either way.
      - mgkimsal 7y ago
        > just because someone made something shiny and declared it "unsupported"? Part of the argument for using much of the stuff out there is because it's "supported" (commercial, community, etc). Without some degree of support, things dwindle/die. The 'support' for language stuff may simply be security patches. If/when those stop being provided, you're starting to do a disservice to people to continue to push that language, even if the core functionality you need is still working and perhaps even unaffected. > I'm not targeting Python 2 ... I try hard to keep my code both Python 3 and Python 2 compatible. Given that there are breaking changes between the two, I can't read this any other way that that you're 'targeting' Python 2. If there's a way to do something in 2, and it's not working that way any more in 3, and you're making code so that it runs in both (weird syntax, translation layers, etc) then... you're targeting 3. The same way that if you use 3 syntax, you're 'targeting' 3. That's just how it is. > but people use it because it benefits them, not "because it's supported". The benefit is that they don't have to go through whatever hoops it takes to upgrade to have the latest versions. In many cases the later version may not add much directly, but 'community support' and 'security' are two ... emergent properties of a critical mass adopting new versions and dropping support for old versions. > How do you know I'm there? Wild-ass guess from the gist of all your earlier posts in this thread? > But if you want a more "standard"/politically-correct response: Python 2 is still being supported, I'd say that's partially 'under duress'. My reading of the situation years ago was that the Python community - at least the leadership - wanted to EOL P2 on Jan 1, 2015. There was a gigantic stink/pushback, and support was extended for another 5 years. I will grant that the v3 switchover was pretty bad - I'm not a pro user, but had some colleagues that dealt with a lot, and certainly, 8+ years ago, it was pretty hard to just 'switch' running systems. Even developing new stuff from scratch - there were a lot of 'only works in 2' libraries that were entrenched standards without clear update paths. However, rather than doubling down and making 3 a more attractive proposition (work on upgrade path, faster language, better docs, whatever), the agreement was to support P2 for another 5 years. That's an eternity in the tech world. You could argue it shouldn't be, but it is. Yet, from python colleagues - those who've stayed - the upgrade story isn't significantly better. I'm taking their word for it, but based on your posts, it doesn't seem to be either.

dataflow 7y ago

Uhm I think you misunderstood the problem. I already understand Unicode, and I can handle Unicode just fine as far as the facilities are there, in both Python 2 and Python 3 -- individually. The places where I have trouble are (1) where either or both languages do something nonsensical, (2) where the facilities just don't seem to be there (sys.argv?), (3) where there are bugs (try writing binary to stdout with IDLE open), or (4) where there seems no reasonable way to write code that behaves correctly in both languages without making your own little translation layer. Like as an example for #1, "a".encode('unicode_escape') == b'a' makes no sense. Why should escaping a string suddenly turn it into bytes? I never even specified an encoding for those bytes. And similarly why should "a".decode('unicode_escape') be an error? It makes perfect sense. What they did looked nice in theory (no implicit conversions between bytes and strings etc.) but IMHO they practically completely wrecked strings in Python 3.

dataflow 7y ago
Also, I think the facilities are lacking for case-insensitive comparisons in Python 2, so I guess this is one thing they improved. Still don't know how to do it "correctly" when writing Python 2-compatible code.
- mgkimsal 7y ago
  > Still don't know how to do it "correctly" when writing Python 2-compatible code. Does writing python 2 code stop being 'worth it' at some point? If so, where is that point? It sort of sounds like you're already there. There's still people using P2 at least in part because of all the hoops people are jumping through to keep supporting it, no? I'm not a professional python dev, so it doesn't impact me as much as some of my colleagues, but 'backwards compatible' issues crop up in other platforms/langauges as well. Wordpress might be the biggest example in PHP. They've kept a minimum target language which is far behing 'current' or even 'currently supported', and it's been a catch 22. Hosts keep supporting PHP 5.4, for example, far later than they 'should' have, because people kept writing new stuff targeting PHP 5.4. WP 5 was, alas, a missed opportunity to target PHP7 as a minimum. :/
  - dataflow 7y ago
    > Does writing python 2 code stop being 'worth it' at some point? If so, where is that point? It sort of sounds like you're already there. How do you know I'm there? If nothing else I still have my own previous Python 2 code that I've spent time on and that's useful to me! Why would I just throw them all away or waste massive amounts of time rewriting them into Python 3? Is my goal supposed to be to please the masses here? Honestly that's sufficient reason already. But if you want a more "standard"/politically-correct response: Python 2 is still being supported, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS literally only just reached EOL last month and can be found in the wild, Python 3 support is lagging in a lot of places (e.g. PyPy is still on 3.5, although I'm just using it as an example; I don't use it much), and I still come across Python 2-based tools and packages once in a while. So I guess the answer to your question is it "stops being worth it" when I stop coming across situations where I'd regret abandoning Python 2. > There's still people using P2 at least in part because of all the hoops people are jumping through to keep supporting it, no? "Because" is an odd way to put it... it's true that if they didn't support P2 then people would use P2 less, but people use it because it benefits them, not "because it's supported". I mean, you're also alive "at least in part because" of all the hoops people jump through to grow and bring food within your reach, but I doubt your conclusion is that this should stop being the case... > They've kept a minimum target language which is far behind 'current' or even 'currently supported', and it's been a catch 22. What I don't understand is why are people supposed to keep abandoning good software just because someone made something shiny and declared it "unsupported"? I hate this "you have to like my updates... or I will force you" attitude that every organization seems to have nowadays. People are trying to solve their own problems, not please the leader they're following. > Hosts keep supporting PHP 5.4, for example, far later than they 'should' have, because people kept writing new stuff targeting PHP 5.4. I mean, this isn't even the same situation? I'm not targeting Python 2 or introducing a dependency on it generally. I try hard to keep my code both Python 3 and Python 2 compatible. So the decision as to whether to move on or not is left to the client (which is often myself) and there's no obstacle either way.
    - mgkimsal 7y ago
      > just because someone made something shiny and declared it "unsupported"? Part of the argument for using much of the stuff out there is because it's "supported" (commercial, community, etc). Without some degree of support, things dwindle/die. The 'support' for language stuff may simply be security patches. If/when those stop being provided, you're starting to do a disservice to people to continue to push that language, even if the core functionality you need is still working and perhaps even unaffected. > I'm not targeting Python 2 ... I try hard to keep my code both Python 3 and Python 2 compatible. Given that there are breaking changes between the two, I can't read this any other way that that you're 'targeting' Python 2. If there's a way to do something in 2, and it's not working that way any more in 3, and you're making code so that it runs in both (weird syntax, translation layers, etc) then... you're targeting 3. The same way that if you use 3 syntax, you're 'targeting' 3. That's just how it is. > but people use it because it benefits them, not "because it's supported". The benefit is that they don't have to go through whatever hoops it takes to upgrade to have the latest versions. In many cases the later version may not add much directly, but 'community support' and 'security' are two ... emergent properties of a critical mass adopting new versions and dropping support for old versions. > How do you know I'm there? Wild-ass guess from the gist of all your earlier posts in this thread? > But if you want a more "standard"/politically-correct response: Python 2 is still being supported, I'd say that's partially 'under duress'. My reading of the situation years ago was that the Python community - at least the leadership - wanted to EOL P2 on Jan 1, 2015. There was a gigantic stink/pushback, and support was extended for another 5 years. I will grant that the v3 switchover was pretty bad - I'm not a pro user, but had some colleagues that dealt with a lot, and certainly, 8+ years ago, it was pretty hard to just 'switch' running systems. Even developing new stuff from scratch - there were a lot of 'only works in 2' libraries that were entrenched standards without clear update paths. However, rather than doubling down and making 3 a more attractive proposition (work on upgrade path, faster language, better docs, whatever), the agreement was to support P2 for another 5 years. That's an eternity in the tech world. You could argue it shouldn't be, but it is. Yet, from python colleagues - those who've stayed - the upgrade story isn't significantly better. I'm taking their word for it, but based on your posts, it doesn't seem to be either.