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Right, but that's a different question. It's possible to do one of three things: 1. Stay on 2.x 2. Move to 3.x 3. Simultaneously support 2.x yet al

by mcav 17y ago

Right, but that's a different question. It's possible to do one of three things: 1. Stay on 2.x 2. Move to 3.x 3. Simultaneously support 2.x yet also move to 3.x Hopefully, even projects like Django could move to 3.x for new releases while supporting 2.x on an older release. That's as close to win-win as you could get.

ubernostrum 17y ago
"Hopefully, even projects like Django could move to 3.x for new releases while supporting 2.x on an older release." Not really, no. There are two things going on here. First, many people seem to have a different view of the Python 3.0 migration process, when compared to what's been discussed and planned for by the Python development team. Put simply, nobody who actually works on developing Python expected that this would be a quick transition, and mostly they seemed to expect (and plan for) large projects taking at least a couple years to get to the point of running only on 3.x. That's why there will be a Python 2.7, and possibly a Python 2.8. The other thing is simply that many end users can't do a quick jump to 3.0 installations and will be pretty upset if they lose new releases of software as a result. So "we're jumping to 3.0, too bad if you can't" isn't an attitude we can take. And, honestly, most of the operating-system vendors aren't going to be there with packaged 3.x Python and packaged 3.x libraries anyway. So what we're doing is a process of deprecation: one Python version per release. Django 1.1 will be the last release to officially support Python 2.3, Django 1.2 will be the last to support Python 2.4, and so on until we hit Django 1.4 (hopefully) sometime next year. At that point we'll only officially be supporting 2.6 and newer in the 2.x series, distros will have had time to catch up, major installations will have had time to lay out upgrade plans and we'll be at a place where a 3.x port is far simpler to undertake.
- mcav 17y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that projects would want to migrate right now; it will take quite a while before many projects choose to make that transition.
- anamax 17y ago
  Google App Engine's Python is 2.5. I wouldn't bet on 2.6 becoming available for a couple of years. Django 1.0 just became available on GAE. I'd hate to see things stop with 1.3.

by mcav 17y ago

ubernostrum 17y ago

"Hopefully, even projects like Django could move to 3.x for new releases while supporting 2.x on an older release." Not really, no. There are two things going on here. First, many people seem to have a different view of the Python 3.0 migration process, when compared to what's been discussed and planned for by the Python development team. Put simply, nobody who actually works on developing Python expected that this would be a quick transition, and mostly they seemed to expect (and plan for) large projects taking at least a couple years to get to the point of running only on 3.x. That's why there will be a Python 2.7, and possibly a Python 2.8. The other thing is simply that many end users can't do a quick jump to 3.0 installations and will be pretty upset if they lose new releases of software as a result. So "we're jumping to 3.0, too bad if you can't" isn't an attitude we can take. And, honestly, most of the operating-system vendors aren't going to be there with packaged 3.x Python and packaged 3.x libraries anyway. So what we're doing is a process of deprecation: one Python version per release. Django 1.1 will be the last release to officially support Python 2.3, Django 1.2 will be the last to support Python 2.4, and so on until we hit Django 1.4 (hopefully) sometime next year. At that point we'll only officially be supporting 2.6 and newer in the 2.x series, distros will have had time to catch up, major installations will have had time to lay out upgrade plans and we'll be at a place where a 3.x port is far simpler to undertake.

mcav 17y ago
I didn't mean to imply that projects would want to migrate right now; it will take quite a while before many projects choose to make that transition.
anamax 17y ago
Google App Engine's Python is 2.5. I wouldn't bet on 2.6 becoming available for a couple of years. Django 1.0 just became available on GAE. I'd hate to see things stop with 1.3.