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> Now, in 2019, Python 3 versions are dominant and the Python Software Foundation has said that Python 2 reaches its official end-of-life on January 1, 2020 , s

by aazaa 7y ago

> Now, in 2019, Python 3 versions are dominant and the Python Software Foundation has said that Python 2 reaches its official end-of-life on January 1, 2020 , so that they can focus their limited time fully on the future. Undoubtedly, there are still millions of lines of Python 2 out there, but the truth is undeniable: Python 2 is on its way out. The Python 2/3 split is by far the most annoying thing about Python. I don't develop software in Python but about half the time I've had to use a Python library or program the problem of 2/3 incompatibility has cropped up. Some projects don't make it clear whether one or the other is required, leading to further confusion. If anything the Python 2 EOL could make a bad situation worse. Like Khan Academy, each Python 2 package maintainer will be forced to make a decision: move to Python 3 or abandon and maybe move to an entirely new language. It think many will choose to abandon, leaving these packages to rot. Second on the list are the multiple package managers (or things looking like package managers). Third on the list of annoyances are native extensions, driven by the poor performance of Python itself. These extensions make it difficult to use certain libraries across operating systems. So as a non-Python developer I don't look forward to the occasions when I must use a Python-based piece of software.

zo1 7y ago
If you're installing a package via the package manager, it will very quickly tell you if you can install it on your specific version of python. Unless you're downloading some rather obscure and un-loved library where the author didn't explicitly state which versions of python they support. Multiple package managers: There has only been 2 big ones from my long-term general usage of python. Easy-install and pip, the former of which is falling in favor but still semi-supported. Pretty much everything runs off of pip. What may be confusing you, and does confuse me at times as well, is their naming and the installation instructions as provided by library authors. E.g. some say python setup.py -install others just tell you to "pip install" it. Some would say use "setuptools", etc. Other would tell you to use things such as "conda" or "anaconda", pipx, and to create virtualenvs. All secondary, but things that should not ideally distract you from just plain using pip. 3. This has also been getting a whole lot better in the last 5 or so years. Microsoft has been funding dev-time to make the ecosystem for python (including extension compilation) much more pleasant in the Windows space. Also, the package managers and library authors are doing a whole lot better in that binary distributions are much more prominent so the compilation of the extensions never has to happen on your machine.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Unless you're downloading some rather obscure and un-loved library where the author didn't explicitly state which versions of python they support. I take it that you've never tried the obscure and un-loved pwntools package :)
sergiotapia 7y ago
>The Python 2/3 split is by far the most annoying thing about Python. It's _literally_ the reason why I went with Ruby instead of Python all those years ago.
stoicShell 7y ago
On a personal level, I have the same problems with using Python. I've become enamored with package management in Go — not perfect yet but efficient, simple, to the point. The backwards compatibility enforced at the version level is also great — you often find Go code years old that keeps running just fine. I like things that you set up once and may just forget, that's where real productivity is found imho — it doesn't matter that I can do X in 1h if I have to do it every other day, I'd rather spend a full week or even ten, and solve it forever. I think Js is comparably simple but I've heard so many horror stories about dependency management that I just don't know — I've yet to use Js in prod myself at work and I don't look forward to this day. Here's the thing: it does not matter how great a language may be while I'm writing it, because that's 10-25% of my time; what matters is that everything around, from setting up dev environments to shipping passing by devops, especially as a one-man/small team, can be done "simply enough". And that, IMHO, is where Go is miles ahead of most other languages from a philosophy standpoint. I tend to feel very positively about Rust for it looks to be an extraordinary intelligently lead project, with comparably 'real' benefits that extend beyond the code page (but I've yet to use it myself to confirm first-hand). We see the importance of these topics so clearly with Py2/3: none of the problems between these two have anything to do with what's in the code, with programming; all of it has to do with the ecosystem, with the real and much larger task of maintaining codebases, managing teams and deploying 'stuff' in ways that work with the environment (whether tech, people, knowledge, politics, what have you). The move to 3 by Python has been a failure in that regard, and IMHO it rests on the shoulders of an entire community who chose to stick to 2 now regardless of what happened then. Well then is now and the result is chaotic. I'm not worried about Python itself — the language is incredibly popular, especially in academia, and we need to double the programmers population earthly each year so that's a sustainable amount of new projects written in Python 3 every day. Old 2 projects will be but a drop 10 years from now simply because of this number effects of growing tech at such an insane rate (it's been about true since the late 1940's, uncle Bob has a great take on it in his latest appearance in The Changelog podcast). Anyway. I can't wait for py2 to die and py3 to become the only Python.
- whatsmyusername 7y ago
  > I like things that you set up once and may just forget, that's where real productivity is found imho Very productive, until an unpatched security issue in a dependecy from 6 years ago bites you in the ass.

by aazaa 7y ago

zo1 7y ago

If you're installing a package via the package manager, it will very quickly tell you if you can install it on your specific version of python. Unless you're downloading some rather obscure and un-loved library where the author didn't explicitly state which versions of python they support. Multiple package managers: There has only been 2 big ones from my long-term general usage of python. Easy-install and pip, the former of which is falling in favor but still semi-supported. Pretty much everything runs off of pip. What may be confusing you, and does confuse me at times as well, is their naming and the installation instructions as provided by library authors. E.g. some say python setup.py -install others just tell you to "pip install" it. Some would say use "setuptools", etc. Other would tell you to use things such as "conda" or "anaconda", pipx, and to create virtualenvs. All secondary, but things that should not ideally distract you from just plain using pip. 3. This has also been getting a whole lot better in the last 5 or so years. Microsoft has been funding dev-time to make the ecosystem for python (including extension compilation) much more pleasant in the Windows space. Also, the package managers and library authors are doing a whole lot better in that binary distributions are much more prominent so the compilation of the extensions never has to happen on your machine.

saagarjha 7y ago
> Unless you're downloading some rather obscure and un-loved library where the author didn't explicitly state which versions of python they support. I take it that you've never tried the obscure and un-loved pwntools package :)

sergiotapia 7y ago

>The Python 2/3 split is by far the most annoying thing about Python. It's _literally_ the reason why I went with Ruby instead of Python all those years ago.

stoicShell 7y ago

On a personal level, I have the same problems with using Python. I've become enamored with package management in Go — not perfect yet but efficient, simple, to the point. The backwards compatibility enforced at the version level is also great — you often find Go code years old that keeps running just fine. I like things that you set up once and may just forget, that's where real productivity is found imho — it doesn't matter that I can do X in 1h if I have to do it every other day, I'd rather spend a full week or even ten, and solve it forever. I think Js is comparably simple but I've heard so many horror stories about dependency management that I just don't know — I've yet to use Js in prod myself at work and I don't look forward to this day. Here's the thing: it does not matter how great a language may be while I'm writing it, because that's 10-25% of my time; what matters is that everything around, from setting up dev environments to shipping passing by devops, especially as a one-man/small team, can be done "simply enough". And that, IMHO, is where Go is miles ahead of most other languages from a philosophy standpoint. I tend to feel very positively about Rust for it looks to be an extraordinary intelligently lead project, with comparably 'real' benefits that extend beyond the code page (but I've yet to use it myself to confirm first-hand). We see the importance of these topics so clearly with Py2/3: none of the problems between these two have anything to do with what's in the code, with programming; all of it has to do with the ecosystem, with the real and much larger task of maintaining codebases, managing teams and deploying 'stuff' in ways that work with the environment (whether tech, people, knowledge, politics, what have you). The move to 3 by Python has been a failure in that regard, and IMHO it rests on the shoulders of an entire community who chose to stick to 2 now regardless of what happened then. Well then is now and the result is chaotic. I'm not worried about Python itself — the language is incredibly popular, especially in academia, and we need to double the programmers population earthly each year so that's a sustainable amount of new projects written in Python 3 every day. Old 2 projects will be but a drop 10 years from now simply because of this number effects of growing tech at such an insane rate (it's been about true since the late 1940's, uncle Bob has a great take on it in his latest appearance in The Changelog podcast). Anyway. I can't wait for py2 to die and py3 to become the only Python.

whatsmyusername 7y ago
> I like things that you set up once and may just forget, that's where real productivity is found imho Very productive, until an unpatched security issue in a dependecy from 6 years ago bites you in the ass.