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> I'm still surprised that it's taken this long to finally close support That's because the Python community is too nice. When Ruby or node broke compat, they
by sametmax 7y ago
> I'm still surprised that it's taken this long to finally close support
That's because the Python community is too nice.
When Ruby or node broke compat, they just said "move or die". People moved.
When Python broke compat, they gave 7 years. People screamed, cried, complained, sweared it was impossible for them, that life was hard and the PSF was unfair.
They got an extension of 5 more years.
People still complained !
Hell, famous authors resented python 3 for years, refusing publicly to update their book.
On the other hand, the PSF had a very small budget, only few tiny donations and contributions by people or big companies that were saying they couldn't migrate that their lines of code. The same code that were making them a living, from a 25 years old amazing tech given to them for free.
My take on this is that if you are doing an open source project with a lot of volunteer work, don't be too nice. People have a tendency to abuse it. Save yourself trouble, and balance respect with users and convenience for you.
- hoseja 7y agoMaybe also don't make tools targeted at people who can't use proper tools.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- orblivion 7y agoSomething about the "too nice" thing rubs me the wrong way. You gotta respect the people who develop the software. At the same time, the way people are deemed "complainers" reeks of contempt for the users. Yes, the users sometimes take your free work for granted. But you offered it. If you don't like the expectations that users assume are attached to it, you should say so upfront so they can become entangled with Ruby instead. I don't think I disagree with your point in practice. Maybe in some details. I just don't think that not being credible in your plan to drop support on a given date is necessarily such a "nice" thing to do. You could say it's a "weak" thing to do. It doesn't help people prioritize the move and eventually hurts people by putting them into a jam on the day finally comes here. I think the ideal thing would be to break compatibility piece by piece, assuming it's really necessary, but be _understanding_ about it. Tell people "we understand that this is inconvenient for a certain number of people but have to cut it off at some place", not "stop complaining about free stuff".
- omni 7y ago> When Ruby or node broke compat, they just said "move or die". People moved. Unless I'm missing something, this is a pretty disingenuous comparison. Ruby and Node breaking changes have been fairly small, Python 3 was anything but.