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Because of the luddites at RedHat, Python2.7 isn't actually dead until 2024. It's infuriating. https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511 https://access.redh

Because of the luddites at RedHat, Python2.7 isn't actually dead until 2024. It's infuriating. https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511 https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511

mistrial9 7y ago
the emotional content outweighs the objective situation here; also humorous since Luddites are commonly misunderstood per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
- diminoten 7y ago
  Not misunderstood; luddites (lowercase l, or at least the generalized form) means something different than Luddites (capitalized L).
  - jimktrains2 7y ago
    I'm fairly certain the lowercase l version is the same, but the Luddites are remembered as being ant technology, not pro labour.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      A luddite, generally, is one who is anti-technology. A Luddite, specifically, is a member of a 19th century movement to prevent automation from taking their job. It's insanely pedantic to try and point out the difference, given the ease with which one can find the generic definition.
lidHanteyk 7y ago
It's almost as if the Python Software Foundation isn't capable of killing the Python 2 language unilaterally without the Python community's consent.
- diminoten 7y ago
  It's almost as if people were given 12 fucking years (or admittedly fewer, depending on when your favorite library was migrated) to move over, didn't, and are now obstinately standing in the way of forward progress.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Yeah, it’s super unfortunate how the existence of py27 security patches magically stops all py3 users from doing any work. It’s sort of how the existence of c prevents anyone from using rust.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      Yeah right, because splitting the community hasn't caused any problems at all... Get a grip; you are failing at whatever your job is if you're responsible for a python2 project and haven't moved it to python3 by now.
      - alanfranz 7y ago
        Python3 was a bad idea. Guido himself acknowledged it. There was no point in breaking everything. The split was initiated by core developers, not by the community.
        diminoten 7y ago
        Sorry, not good enough. The decision was made, good or bad, 11 years ago. Everyone had plenty of time to come to grips with that reality, anyone still lingering on Python2 is bad at their job. The bad decision now is to allow the split to continue, and RedHat is allowing that to happen due to greed and ignorance.
  - Grue3 7y ago
    It's almost as if programming languages live forever as long as there's production code that uses them. See: COBOL.
cfors 7y ago
It’s a business play. If companies don’t want to move off 2.x and are willing to pay a Software vendor to backport security fixes so that they can CYA, so be it.
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  Easy. Don't buy products that are obviously still using python2. Problem should solve itself in some time. Hard to tell sometimes, but looking at dependencies and plugin languages is a good way.
  - hermitdev 7y ago
    The only software I've written in Python that's been sold was written against 2.5 and has long been out of my control. We sold the source to the sole client (was a financial services migration tool for a very specific domain during a joint venture; I can't divulge anymore). I know longer work at the company, but i'd wager that the client wouldnt have been willing to pay $500/hr (the rate my company billed me out at for support, features, etc), 10 years ago, to have me port the app and the handful of 3rd party dependencies to Python 3. Moving from 2 to 3 took a while. I moved once the libs I used moved. For an "app" developer, the migration was easy once my dependencies were ready. Most of the changes were straightforward. The print statement becoming a function was easy. str becoming Unicode and introducing bytes has been a headache. Still having issues time to time with text encoding, especially with encoded text dealing with SQL Server (looking at the default CP-1252 for US English). Another one that still trips me up is is needing a "newline=''" argument when opening as CSV file. That said, I love Python 3. Ita mostly about forgetting/relearning old syntax, which is going to happen for anything youve been using for decades and undergoes a significant change. I started with Python over 15 years ago, at version 2.2, for reference.
    - raobit 7y ago
      what is your take w.r.t to other backend languages if you have worked with any?
sweettea 7y ago
Forunately, tauthon is a community-supported fork of Python 2.7 so that we may continue using the best version indefinitely.
- diminoten 7y ago
  You'll be laughed out of future interviews if you mention your interest in that project.
  - lolsal 7y ago
    Some people use software as a tool and aren't zealots about versions or constantly chasing updates.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      Yeah, and even those people would snort derisively at a project designed to keep 2.7 alive like this. "Getting shit done" doesn't happen if you can't move forward eventually. I'd have substantial concerns hiring someone who can't get over Python 2.7.
      - lolsal 7y ago
        I think it's less that someone "can't get over Python 2.7" and more "why should I?". Nothing in 3 except bytes/string handling is compelling. Lots of 2 libraries haven't been ported. There is no legal reason to move and no other time pressure. I would argue that people have been "getting shit done" with C for decades, despite newer shinier flavors of the month popping up, so your argument doesn't hold water to me.
Nullabillity 7y ago
If you want other people to make a change then it's on you to make a convincing argument for why the new thing is an improvement, not just go on tirades about how people should get with the times. Personally, I lost faith in the Python core team because of the Py3 migration. Yes, 3.x now has a bunch of nice features that 2.x did, but almost none of them actually depend on the 3.0's breakage (as proven by Tauthon). If you want people to follow you through a break-the-world migration then you need to motivate why it is needed and why it couldn't be done incrementally, not try tempt them with a bunch of unrelated carrots that are bundled together with the breaking change.
- diminoten 7y ago
  I've done that; this isn't the first time I've talked about this problem. HN is not a safe space, there is no room to convince anyone of anything on here, so tirades are all that's left. We're well past your argument. It's been 11 years, it is no longer reasonable to hold your particular grudge. Get on board with the modern Python or get the hell out of the conversation.
- madhadron 7y ago
  > If you want people to follow you through a break-the-world migration then you need to motivate why it is needed and why it couldn't be done incrementally They did. I remember looking through this, and I remain convinced that the core developers were correct and there was no way to fix Unicode handling incrementally.
  - Nullabillity 7y ago
    Add the u-sigil for unicode (as they did), add the b-sigil for bytestrings (as they eventually did), and then go through a regular deprecation cycle for sigil-less strings (rather than releasing a 3.0 where the u-sigils were removed completely). Maybe at some point re-add sigil-less strings as an alias for u-strings, but I'd rather have old stuff break with a clear message than have a bunch of weird side bugs. Do the same for the type names.

Because of the luddites at RedHat, Python2.7 isn't actually dead until 2024. It's infuriating. https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511 https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511

mistrial9 7y ago

the emotional content outweighs the objective situation here; also humorous since Luddites are commonly misunderstood per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

diminoten 7y ago
Not misunderstood; luddites (lowercase l, or at least the generalized form) means something different than Luddites (capitalized L).
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  I'm fairly certain the lowercase l version is the same, but the Luddites are remembered as being ant technology, not pro labour.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    A luddite, generally, is one who is anti-technology. A Luddite, specifically, is a member of a 19th century movement to prevent automation from taking their job. It's insanely pedantic to try and point out the difference, given the ease with which one can find the generic definition.

lidHanteyk 7y ago

It's almost as if the Python Software Foundation isn't capable of killing the Python 2 language unilaterally without the Python community's consent.

diminoten 7y ago
It's almost as if people were given 12 fucking years (or admittedly fewer, depending on when your favorite library was migrated) to move over, didn't, and are now obstinately standing in the way of forward progress.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Yeah, it’s super unfortunate how the existence of py27 security patches magically stops all py3 users from doing any work. It’s sort of how the existence of c prevents anyone from using rust.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    Yeah right, because splitting the community hasn't caused any problems at all... Get a grip; you are failing at whatever your job is if you're responsible for a python2 project and haven't moved it to python3 by now.
    - alanfranz 7y ago
      Python3 was a bad idea. Guido himself acknowledged it. There was no point in breaking everything. The split was initiated by core developers, not by the community.
      - diminoten 7y ago
        Sorry, not good enough. The decision was made, good or bad, 11 years ago. Everyone had plenty of time to come to grips with that reality, anyone still lingering on Python2 is bad at their job. The bad decision now is to allow the split to continue, and RedHat is allowing that to happen due to greed and ignorance.
- Grue3 7y ago
  It's almost as if programming languages live forever as long as there's production code that uses them. See: COBOL.

cfors 7y ago

It’s a business play. If companies don’t want to move off 2.x and are willing to pay a Software vendor to backport security fixes so that they can CYA, so be it.

CameronNemo 7y ago
Easy. Don't buy products that are obviously still using python2. Problem should solve itself in some time. Hard to tell sometimes, but looking at dependencies and plugin languages is a good way.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  The only software I've written in Python that's been sold was written against 2.5 and has long been out of my control. We sold the source to the sole client (was a financial services migration tool for a very specific domain during a joint venture; I can't divulge anymore). I know longer work at the company, but i'd wager that the client wouldnt have been willing to pay $500/hr (the rate my company billed me out at for support, features, etc), 10 years ago, to have me port the app and the handful of 3rd party dependencies to Python 3. Moving from 2 to 3 took a while. I moved once the libs I used moved. For an "app" developer, the migration was easy once my dependencies were ready. Most of the changes were straightforward. The print statement becoming a function was easy. str becoming Unicode and introducing bytes has been a headache. Still having issues time to time with text encoding, especially with encoded text dealing with SQL Server (looking at the default CP-1252 for US English). Another one that still trips me up is is needing a "newline=''" argument when opening as CSV file. That said, I love Python 3. Ita mostly about forgetting/relearning old syntax, which is going to happen for anything youve been using for decades and undergoes a significant change. I started with Python over 15 years ago, at version 2.2, for reference.
  - raobit 7y ago
    what is your take w.r.t to other backend languages if you have worked with any?

sweettea 7y ago

Forunately, tauthon is a community-supported fork of Python 2.7 so that we may continue using the best version indefinitely.

diminoten 7y ago
You'll be laughed out of future interviews if you mention your interest in that project.
- lolsal 7y ago
  Some people use software as a tool and aren't zealots about versions or constantly chasing updates.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    Yeah, and even those people would snort derisively at a project designed to keep 2.7 alive like this. "Getting shit done" doesn't happen if you can't move forward eventually. I'd have substantial concerns hiring someone who can't get over Python 2.7.
    - lolsal 7y ago
      I think it's less that someone "can't get over Python 2.7" and more "why should I?". Nothing in 3 except bytes/string handling is compelling. Lots of 2 libraries haven't been ported. There is no legal reason to move and no other time pressure. I would argue that people have been "getting shit done" with C for decades, despite newer shinier flavors of the month popping up, so your argument doesn't hold water to me.

Nullabillity 7y ago

If you want other people to make a change then it's on you to make a convincing argument for why the new thing is an improvement, not just go on tirades about how people should get with the times. Personally, I lost faith in the Python core team because of the Py3 migration. Yes, 3.x now has a bunch of nice features that 2.x did, but almost none of them actually depend on the 3.0's breakage (as proven by Tauthon). If you want people to follow you through a break-the-world migration then you need to motivate why it is needed and why it couldn't be done incrementally, not try tempt them with a bunch of unrelated carrots that are bundled together with the breaking change.

diminoten 7y ago
I've done that; this isn't the first time I've talked about this problem. HN is not a safe space, there is no room to convince anyone of anything on here, so tirades are all that's left. We're well past your argument. It's been 11 years, it is no longer reasonable to hold your particular grudge. Get on board with the modern Python or get the hell out of the conversation.
madhadron 7y ago
> If you want people to follow you through a break-the-world migration then you need to motivate why it is needed and why it couldn't be done incrementally They did. I remember looking through this, and I remain convinced that the core developers were correct and there was no way to fix Unicode handling incrementally.
- Nullabillity 7y ago
  Add the u-sigil for unicode (as they did), add the b-sigil for bytestrings (as they eventually did), and then go through a regular deprecation cycle for sigil-less strings (rather than releasing a 3.0 where the u-sigils were removed completely). Maybe at some point re-add sigil-less strings as an alias for u-strings, but I'd rather have old stuff break with a clear message than have a bunch of weird side bugs. Do the same for the type names.