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A major critique of the python transition is that they forced you to port your code instead of supporting python 2 code alongside python 3.

morkalork 3y ago
As someone who only started using python in earnest after 3 got its legs, I appreciate that decision.
- D13Fd 3y ago
  Yeah that's the boat I'm in. I started using Python for production projects after the switch. It sucks for those who came before, but it's just fine for those who came after, and I'm not sure it hurt the platform as much as this article suggests. Plus, they clearly learned their lesson after that switch, which is still talked about in 2023.
crote 3y ago
Python 3 was released in 2008. Python 2.7 was supported until 2020. They supported Python 2 alongside Python 3 for 12 years. They provided an automatic conversion tool. They provided libraries which made it possible to run the same code on both 2 & 3. The transition sucked, but they did everything they could to make it as smooth as possible.
- ufmace 3y ago
  My impression is rather different. The automatic conversion tools and compatibility libraries were only provided several years and versions into the v3 transition because the community was demanding it so hard and most users refused to do anything with v3 without it. Most of it probably wouldn't have been necessary at all, or would have been there on day 1, if they had made backwards compatibility the priority instead of going hard on the everyone rewrite everything to the new v3 style right away. I'm sure they didn't want to support Python 2 for 12 years but were instead basically forced to because the transition was so difficult for so many major projects.
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  Not even close. They could've not broken compatibility in the first place. They could've let Python 2 and Python 3 modules import each other in the same process. With what they provided, even 3-4 years ago it was difficult to run some codebases on Python 3.

morkalork 3y ago

As someone who only started using python in earnest after 3 got its legs, I appreciate that decision.

D13Fd 3y ago
Yeah that's the boat I'm in. I started using Python for production projects after the switch. It sucks for those who came before, but it's just fine for those who came after, and I'm not sure it hurt the platform as much as this article suggests. Plus, they clearly learned their lesson after that switch, which is still talked about in 2023.

crote 3y ago

Python 3 was released in 2008. Python 2.7 was supported until 2020. They supported Python 2 alongside Python 3 for 12 years. They provided an automatic conversion tool. They provided libraries which made it possible to run the same code on both 2 & 3. The transition sucked, but they did everything they could to make it as smooth as possible.

ufmace 3y ago
My impression is rather different. The automatic conversion tools and compatibility libraries were only provided several years and versions into the v3 transition because the community was demanding it so hard and most users refused to do anything with v3 without it. Most of it probably wouldn't have been necessary at all, or would have been there on day 1, if they had made backwards compatibility the priority instead of going hard on the everyone rewrite everything to the new v3 style right away. I'm sure they didn't want to support Python 2 for 12 years but were instead basically forced to because the transition was so difficult for so many major projects.
dontlaugh 3y ago
Not even close. They could've not broken compatibility in the first place. They could've let Python 2 and Python 3 modules import each other in the same process. With what they provided, even 3-4 years ago it was difficult to run some codebases on Python 3.