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Whenever I work on a project that gathers interest in multiple places I get input like: * If you do X you'll fail * If you don't do X you'll fail * X is neat

Whenever I work on a project that gathers interest in multiple places I get input like: * If you do X you'll fail * If you don't do X you'll fail * X is neat but don't worry about it til later. I imagine that the people in charge of python, a wildly popular programming language (at the time, and still), got all sorts of input, much of which conflicted. They chose a path and it was a bad choice, a mistake. This is clear in retrospect 13 years later, but at pycon in 2008 (a few months before python 3 officially released) the viewpoint was more mixed - a lot of people thought it was a good path and a lot of people thought it was terrible and others still thought the transition plan was annoying but would be cleared up pretty quick.

Blikkentrekker 5y ago
It's not so much the issue that it is clear that it was a bad decision. — they admit it, owe up to it, and I do not blame them for making the mistake and admitting it was unfortunate and that they learned their lessons. What drives me to ire to no end are the many people that defend it on message boards with “Just upgrade; you had ten years.”, clearly not realizing the risks and money involved in such an endeavor. It's as though the government suddenly start putting something in the water that improves it's health benefits, but will erode contemporary plumping pipes away in ten years and people say. “Just break down your walls and replace your plumbing; you have ten years.”. — it is quite expensive, and risks that my house fall over.
nindalf 5y ago
This is a reasonable take, but think about this from the perspective of engineers who've never made any mistakes in their lives. It's hard for them to fathom how anyone else can make a mistake like the Python devs did. The person you're answering clearly had the foresight to know what was the right thing to do, why can't everyone?

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

It's not so much the issue that it is clear that it was a bad decision. — they admit it, owe up to it, and I do not blame them for making the mistake and admitting it was unfortunate and that they learned their lessons. What drives me to ire to no end are the many people that defend it on message boards with “Just upgrade; you had ten years.”, clearly not realizing the risks and money involved in such an endeavor. It's as though the government suddenly start putting something in the water that improves it's health benefits, but will erode contemporary plumping pipes away in ten years and people say. “Just break down your walls and replace your plumbing; you have ten years.”. — it is quite expensive, and risks that my house fall over.

nindalf 5y ago

This is a reasonable take, but think about this from the perspective of engineers who've never made any mistakes in their lives. It's hard for them to fathom how anyone else can make a mistake like the Python devs did. The person you're answering clearly had the foresight to know what was the right thing to do, why can't everyone?