You don't need to jettison print-as-a-function in order to have print-as-a-statement. >>> print "hello" SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'pr

You don't need to jettison print-as-a-function in order to have print-as-a-statement. >>> print "hello" SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print' If it can print a SyntaxError explaining the problem then it can print "hello". The only snag is that a tuple would be printed slightly differently, but that is harmless. People should be upset that a new release of Python breaks their code, because the Python developers acted unprofessionally in expecting all python code in existence to be rewritten to suit their aesthetic fetishes.