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The Python 2 codebase is growing much faster than Python 3, because the Python core developers have lost touch with the fact that its most dedicated users are n
by vegabook 11y ago
The Python 2 codebase is growing much faster than Python 3, because the Python core developers have lost touch with the fact that its most dedicated users are not web people, but scientific computing users for who the overwhelming choice is 2.7. Anaconda gives you a 3.x choice on its website almost as an afterthought. Theano is half hearted on 3. Bloomberg doesn't even have a 3 access library (goodbye 3.0 for the entire finance sector). Asyncio, one of the so called killer features of 3, looks great but is 10 years too late and is done much better in other languages (goroutines). Python is seriously losing momentum: hey, even Hacker News quickly demoted this story to page 2 precisely because it attracted the usual flood of 2v3 comments causing the comment number to dwarf the score. It's become a controversial and uncool language thanks to this forced 3 story, and the fact that 6 years later in this dog-years world, this issue is still on the table, makes 3 an utter failure.
I predict that 2.7.9.x.y.z will continue well past 2020 and backport any truly useful stuff from 3 because that's much easier than porting 2 code to 3. Or, and the core developers should seriously think about this, they should build 2->3 right into the interpreter so you can run, unmodified 2.7 code on a 3 interpreter (2.7 libraries included), and then pick and choose the 3 features you want yourself.