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I'm curious if there's going to be some community supported fork. Software using Python 2.7 won't magically disappear and I believe there is going to be a dema

I'm curious if there's going to be some community supported fork. Software using Python 2.7 won't magically disappear and I believe there is going to be a demand after fixes. (I know about Tauthon but I don't think it applies here ...)

badsectoracula 7y ago
There is Tauthon[0] that (they said) also backported several features in non-backwards compatibility breaking ways, but the last commit to the repo was from December. Perhaps after running it for 3-4 years (and faced hostility from some Python devs - i remember at some point being downvoted just for mentioning it on Reddit), the maintainer got tired of it? [0] https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon
- guitarbill 7y ago
  might also be indicative of how many people yelling for a fork were actually willing to put in the time to maintain it or pay for it? (most places i've worked at, when we do the calculations for the business it's much cheaper/less risky just to upgrade to python 3, rather than to support python 2 or switch languages)
talentedcoin 7y ago
That would be great imo. Then the rest of us who are happy with Python 3 can just get on with life. I'm willing to bet that the demand is not really there and most of this is just kvetching. Should have happened a long time ago. I'm not aware of any good technical reason to still be using Python 2. There is the "I don't have time to upgrade" argument, and I recognize the cost is real. But now we'll see at last if people are willing to stick up for Python 2 more than just figuratively.
- dagmx 7y ago
  Dependencies in computer graphics is still a big holdout unfortunately. The industry is still not in the process of porting major pieces of the ecosystem. It’ll be another 3-5 years i estimate
loeg 7y ago
I guess PyPy is another 2.x language implementation outside of CPython that might continue to support 2.x. However, there's a reason it isn't universally used to run CPython code, so that may not be appealing as an upgrade path from CPython 2.7.
zitterbewegung 7y ago
This is the Python dev community telling people that it isn't supported. Demand for fixes will occur but it would probably best be handled by a third party that would specialize in that or developing it internally.
zokier 7y ago
RH, Canonical, SuSE etc probably will be trading patches, but I doubt they will organize to do independent "releases" anymore.
acdha 7y ago
I think it's really unlikely because the primary reason people are still on Python 2 is that they don't have development time to upgrade. If they had enough time to support a community fork, they could just upgrade to Python 3 and spend the saved developer hours on something more important to their projects.
- The_Colonel 7y ago
  Collectively support maintenance of Python is much less work (and less risk) than to port all existing production Python 2 applications though.
  - acdha 7y ago
    The problem is distribution: this might be true for the entire world but the time demands to start and maintain such an effort are larger than the cost of updating all but the largest projects.
int_19h 7y ago
https://www.activestate.com/products/python/python-2-7/ https://www.activestate.com/products/python/python-2-7/

badsectoracula 7y ago

There is Tauthon[0] that (they said) also backported several features in non-backwards compatibility breaking ways, but the last commit to the repo was from December. Perhaps after running it for 3-4 years (and faced hostility from some Python devs - i remember at some point being downvoted just for mentioning it on Reddit), the maintainer got tired of it? [0] https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon

guitarbill 7y ago
might also be indicative of how many people yelling for a fork were actually willing to put in the time to maintain it or pay for it? (most places i've worked at, when we do the calculations for the business it's much cheaper/less risky just to upgrade to python 3, rather than to support python 2 or switch languages)

talentedcoin 7y ago

That would be great imo. Then the rest of us who are happy with Python 3 can just get on with life. I'm willing to bet that the demand is not really there and most of this is just kvetching. Should have happened a long time ago. I'm not aware of any good technical reason to still be using Python 2. There is the "I don't have time to upgrade" argument, and I recognize the cost is real. But now we'll see at last if people are willing to stick up for Python 2 more than just figuratively.

dagmx 7y ago
Dependencies in computer graphics is still a big holdout unfortunately. The industry is still not in the process of porting major pieces of the ecosystem. It’ll be another 3-5 years i estimate

loeg 7y ago

I guess PyPy is another 2.x language implementation outside of CPython that might continue to support 2.x. However, there's a reason it isn't universally used to run CPython code, so that may not be appealing as an upgrade path from CPython 2.7.

zitterbewegung 7y ago

This is the Python dev community telling people that it isn't supported. Demand for fixes will occur but it would probably best be handled by a third party that would specialize in that or developing it internally.

zokier 7y ago

RH, Canonical, SuSE etc probably will be trading patches, but I doubt they will organize to do independent "releases" anymore.

acdha 7y ago

I think it's really unlikely because the primary reason people are still on Python 2 is that they don't have development time to upgrade. If they had enough time to support a community fork, they could just upgrade to Python 3 and spend the saved developer hours on something more important to their projects.

The_Colonel 7y ago
Collectively support maintenance of Python is much less work (and less risk) than to port all existing production Python 2 applications though.
- acdha 7y ago
  The problem is distribution: this might be true for the entire world but the time demands to start and maintain such an effort are larger than the cost of updating all but the largest projects.

int_19h 7y ago

https://www.activestate.com/products/python/python-2-7/ https://www.activestate.com/products/python/python-2-7/