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Why did you bother to learn Python 2? Scientific code typically translates cleanly using 2to3, even. You can get up to speed with all those "terribly complex"

Why did you bother to learn Python 2? Scientific code typically translates cleanly using 2to3, even. You can get up to speed with all those "terribly complex" changes in Python 3 in about five minutes. Scientific code in particular typically has no advanced unicode handling and no custom CPython extensions, so switching is trivial. I totally agree with you: Py 2 vs 3 is of very little significance to us scientists. Which is why I use Py3. There's nothing to gain by sticking with Python 2, and almost no effort at all to go Python 3.

avz 12y ago
> There's nothing to gain by sticking with Python 2 There is a lot more useful code and libraries out there for python 2.
shiven 12y ago
As an example of why Python 2 is going to be the primary Python for me due to circumstances beyond my control, the following two are examples of open-source "Python" software I (and a huge percentage of the structural biologist community) use for 75%-85% of work: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pymol/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/pymol/ http://www.phenix-online.org/ http://www.phenix-online.org/ Both work on Python 2 only! So guess what, I have to write all the extensions and analysis plugins in Python 2 if want them working with those packages. Want to even dare trying to move those two packages to Python 3? See you in a decade!