Python 2 was supported for 20 years. Python 2.7 (largely compatible with other Python 2 versions - and including backported changes from Python 3.1 - was suppor

Python 2 was supported for 20 years. Python 2.7 (largely compatible with other Python 2 versions - and including backported changes from Python 3.1 - was supported for 12 years). The Python project went absolutely above and beyond to support users who wanted to drag out making not particularly complex changes to their codebase for over a decade. During this same time they improved Python 3 in response to feedback and among other effects, made it less different and easier to port, from Python 2. Many common packages supported 2.7 up to its end-of-life as well. One of the reasons that Python is often a source of compatibility errors is that both distros and large standalone applications embraced Python in the early 2000s, became dependent on a particular version, and then refused to work with newer versions. Python is not responsible for all the engineering decisions everyone writing in the language has ever made.