It needed to be done; there were several choices in python 1/2 holding the language back, that all but necessitated breaking changes. Mostly with string/bytes/u

It needed to be done; there were several choices in python 1/2 holding the language back, that all but necessitated breaking changes. Mostly with string/bytes/unicode handling. And the non-breaking route would have been a long term pain. They didn't decide to break over print() and cosmetic changes, it runs way deeper.