I should define "shimming their way". I mean smoothly interoperating python2 code with py3 mechanics in a piecemeal way. Writing 2/3 python is harder than writ

I should define "shimming their way". I mean smoothly interoperating python2 code with py3 mechanics in a piecemeal way. Writing 2/3 python is harder than writing either 2 or 3. Porting 2 code to 2/3 is about as hard or slightly more work than just converting straight to 3. But at the end of it, the benefit is your code can run in both environments. So let's say instead of pulling the plug, py leadership says "Python '2.8' will only run 2/3 code." How is that any different? You're gonna have the people who already ported, who have no need for 2.8 cause they can run 3, and the holdovers who have yet to port from 2.7. That's what I mean by there's no shim. > The entire issue with Python 3 was that there originally was not, the core team had to be dragged kicking and screaming into carving it out through backports and reintroductions because their original strategy was not workable. Maybe I got into the game too late then, but I don't recall it being this much of a dust-up. "six" was released on pypi as 0.9.0 on Jun 28, 2010. 1.0 was in Mar 2011. Even if the py core team was dragged kicking and screaming, that's still 4 + 5 years of people who could have been porting, and weren't. Basically, my primary point is, it was a damn hard problem, and I doubt there's much the core team have done better at the time. All the porting tools in the world won't get people to upgrade if they are resistant for any reason. E: py3 was released in Dec 2008. So I guess those first two years might have been tough. But to me that seems exactly like the ripe time to work on the translation infrastructure and things like six, where you have public release but no immediate pressure to switch.