3 ms·

> Feel free to use and maintain Python 2 indefinitely or move to a different language. Most of the rest of us will move on since the conversions were not that h

> Feel free to use and maintain Python 2 indefinitely or move to a different language. Most of the rest of us will move on since the conversions were not that hard and the improvements worth it and we were given 10+ years to do it. Maintaining Python 2 indefinitely is an option actively being taken away from people. More importantly, fuck anyone who wants to direct my budget! There's things written in Python 2 ages ago that don't justify additional developer time in my company. Except the community is making us do it. If you think migrating some ancient Django app to modern Django is trivially easy, why don't you come do it for us?

jefftk 5y ago
> Maintaining Python 2 indefinitely is an option actively being taken away from people Where do you see this happening? All I see are people and organizations deciding that they don't want to do the work of maintaining Python 2.
- busterarm 5y ago
  Python 2 removed from homebrew. Python 2.7 is not getting any security/crypto updates backported. Eventually PyPI's SSL configuration will change to a point where Python 2.7 won't handle it and then that's it. Game over, no more pip for you, even if you froze on < 21.0. There are Linux distros out there in LTS until late into this decade that shipped with Python 2.7. Ubuntu 18 comes to mind, which EOLs in 2028. They've got a real hard problem to solve.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Python 2.7 is not getting any security/crypto updates backported. There are several projects out there that are supporting python 2.7 with security updates. Tauthon is probably the biggest one.
    - busterarm 5y ago
      Thank you. Yes it is good to see some projects stepping up the fill the gaps. I only wonder as time goes on how well socialized these will be...and if people who suddenly find themselves in the position of maintaining an old Python code base will be able to find out what to do.
      - dagw 5y ago
        Tauthon is kind of interesting because in addition to guaranteeing compatibility with the latest official 2.7 release they are also trying to back-port as many python 3 feature as makes sense without breaking the backwards comparability.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    Oh, you mean other people maintaining Python 2 for you is being taken away. You can maintain Python 2 yourself just fine, though, if you like.
    - HunterWare 5y ago
      heh
    - eli 5y ago
      You can even still get someone else to maintain it for you! Just not the Python Software Foundation. If it's an important piece of your business it may make sense to have a support contract in place regardless.
  - tremon 5y ago
    How does that "actively take away from people the option to maintain Python 2 indefinitely"? It appears to only take away from people the option to use the unmaintained Python 2.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    Ahh, the comments. This is where the nastiness comes out. If you don't want to steward things, don't put yourself in the position of being a steward. Plenty of other languages have been able to provide real long term support to their users for decades. This is why so many of us in a position to do something about it are ditching Python. No regrets.
    - eli 5y ago
      The only nasty comment in this thread is yours.
    - oefrha 5y ago
      Python branches are maintained for five years. Python 2.7 was maintained for an extra five years. You were free to choose any other language with decades of long term support, and you are still free to have this one extended (yes, there are companies selling paid support for Python 2.7 or really old Django versions); not reading what was written on the box then bitching about it is what I would call “nasty”. Btw you can still return your copy of Python for a full refund.
      - busterarm 5y ago
        The lifecycle of software is a lot longer than five years and most people stewarding languages are friendlier to that notion. ANSI C & C99 still have the best support to this day. Just because Python core can say that they support for five years and act like they're being generous when they do so does not make them less like asshats. Most software is not a living, breathing thing.
- InfiniteRand 5y ago
  But if the libraries and extensions are not maintaining compatibility, you need to freeze your dependencies, and sometimes that means freezing the dependencies of your dependencies, or even your OS, and then you hope your machine doesn't break. It's not a tragedy, backwards-compatibility is a burden, and I understand maintainers, especially volunteers not wanting to do it. But migration is a pain, I found the conversion was not too hard, but testing the migrated scripts for breakage was time consuming. FYI, the cause of my latest migration was that the latest version for the mysql-connector for python no longer works with 2.7. See the changelog entry for v8.0.24 here: https://github.com/mysql/mysql-connector-python/blob/master/CHANGES.txt https://github.com/mysql/mysql-connector-python/blob/master/... So something to consider if you want to stay on Python 2 forever.
VectorLock 5y ago
>More importantly, fuck anyone who wants to direct my budget! Is your budget going at all to maintaining Python 2 or the ancient Django you use? I'm gonna guess not.
- jcelerier 5y ago
  If my local electronics shop can still operate fine on win3.1 I'd imagine that there's a fair amount of places where no maintenance at all will be needed
  - busterarm 5y ago
    If anything, this is the normal state of things in business. We all know about how COBOL is alive and kicking but Python's core team decided that reality doesn't apply to them.
    - eli 5y ago
      Sure, IBM will gladly sell you an up-to-date COBOL. Just like someone will gladly sell you an up-to-date Python2. It ain't free.
    - VectorLock 5y ago
      Nobody forced the upgrade to COBOL and it still runs just like you can still run whatever old version of Python you're tied to, with the same downsides as if you ran an ancient version of COBOL.
- busterarm 5y ago
  No that's the point. It's something that doesn't make sense to spend any more money on. It's a tool that's being replaced but that process takes years. Unfortunately not soon enough before the end of Python 2.
  - VectorLock 5y ago
    Python 2 isn't going to just stop working. You just have to accept the downsides if you're not willing to budget for migrating.
kristjansson 5y ago
How much are you paying for Python again?
serverholic 5y ago
You chose to wait this long. You could have spent a little budget to maintain your software but you didn't and now you're paying the price.

jefftk 5y ago

> Maintaining Python 2 indefinitely is an option actively being taken away from people Where do you see this happening? All I see are people and organizations deciding that they don't want to do the work of maintaining Python 2.

busterarm 5y ago
Python 2 removed from homebrew. Python 2.7 is not getting any security/crypto updates backported. Eventually PyPI's SSL configuration will change to a point where Python 2.7 won't handle it and then that's it. Game over, no more pip for you, even if you froze on < 21.0. There are Linux distros out there in LTS until late into this decade that shipped with Python 2.7. Ubuntu 18 comes to mind, which EOLs in 2028. They've got a real hard problem to solve.
- dagw 5y ago
  Python 2.7 is not getting any security/crypto updates backported. There are several projects out there that are supporting python 2.7 with security updates. Tauthon is probably the biggest one.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    Thank you. Yes it is good to see some projects stepping up the fill the gaps. I only wonder as time goes on how well socialized these will be...and if people who suddenly find themselves in the position of maintaining an old Python code base will be able to find out what to do.
    - dagw 5y ago
      Tauthon is kind of interesting because in addition to guaranteeing compatibility with the latest official 2.7 release they are also trying to back-port as many python 3 feature as makes sense without breaking the backwards comparability.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  Oh, you mean other people maintaining Python 2 for you is being taken away. You can maintain Python 2 yourself just fine, though, if you like.
  - HunterWare 5y ago
    heh
  - eli 5y ago
    You can even still get someone else to maintain it for you! Just not the Python Software Foundation. If it's an important piece of your business it may make sense to have a support contract in place regardless.
- tremon 5y ago
  How does that "actively take away from people the option to maintain Python 2 indefinitely"? It appears to only take away from people the option to use the unmaintained Python 2.
- busterarm 5y ago
  Ahh, the comments. This is where the nastiness comes out. If you don't want to steward things, don't put yourself in the position of being a steward. Plenty of other languages have been able to provide real long term support to their users for decades. This is why so many of us in a position to do something about it are ditching Python. No regrets.
  - eli 5y ago
    The only nasty comment in this thread is yours.
  - oefrha 5y ago
    Python branches are maintained for five years. Python 2.7 was maintained for an extra five years. You were free to choose any other language with decades of long term support, and you are still free to have this one extended (yes, there are companies selling paid support for Python 2.7 or really old Django versions); not reading what was written on the box then bitching about it is what I would call “nasty”. Btw you can still return your copy of Python for a full refund.
    - busterarm 5y ago
      The lifecycle of software is a lot longer than five years and most people stewarding languages are friendlier to that notion. ANSI C & C99 still have the best support to this day. Just because Python core can say that they support for five years and act like they're being generous when they do so does not make them less like asshats. Most software is not a living, breathing thing.
InfiniteRand 5y ago
But if the libraries and extensions are not maintaining compatibility, you need to freeze your dependencies, and sometimes that means freezing the dependencies of your dependencies, or even your OS, and then you hope your machine doesn't break. It's not a tragedy, backwards-compatibility is a burden, and I understand maintainers, especially volunteers not wanting to do it. But migration is a pain, I found the conversion was not too hard, but testing the migrated scripts for breakage was time consuming. FYI, the cause of my latest migration was that the latest version for the mysql-connector for python no longer works with 2.7. See the changelog entry for v8.0.24 here: https://github.com/mysql/mysql-connector-python/blob/master/CHANGES.txt https://github.com/mysql/mysql-connector-python/blob/master/... So something to consider if you want to stay on Python 2 forever.

VectorLock 5y ago

>More importantly, fuck anyone who wants to direct my budget! Is your budget going at all to maintaining Python 2 or the ancient Django you use? I'm gonna guess not.

jcelerier 5y ago
If my local electronics shop can still operate fine on win3.1 I'd imagine that there's a fair amount of places where no maintenance at all will be needed
- busterarm 5y ago
  If anything, this is the normal state of things in business. We all know about how COBOL is alive and kicking but Python's core team decided that reality doesn't apply to them.
  - eli 5y ago
    Sure, IBM will gladly sell you an up-to-date COBOL. Just like someone will gladly sell you an up-to-date Python2. It ain't free.
  - VectorLock 5y ago
    Nobody forced the upgrade to COBOL and it still runs just like you can still run whatever old version of Python you're tied to, with the same downsides as if you ran an ancient version of COBOL.
busterarm 5y ago
No that's the point. It's something that doesn't make sense to spend any more money on. It's a tool that's being replaced but that process takes years. Unfortunately not soon enough before the end of Python 2.
- VectorLock 5y ago
  Python 2 isn't going to just stop working. You just have to accept the downsides if you're not willing to budget for migrating.

kristjansson 5y ago

How much are you paying for Python again?

serverholic 5y ago

You chose to wait this long. You could have spent a little budget to maintain your software but you didn't and now you're paying the price.