
One impact of the dropping of Python 2 from Linux distributions - gerikson
https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/python/Python2DroppingImpact
======
mindcrime
You can always fork and maintain the Python2 runtime yourself. Or pay somebody
to do it. Or wait and see if a community fork of a maintained Python 2 emerges
(or maybe it already has, I haven't really been paying attention to the
issue).

But otherwise, I don't have a ton of sympathy here... Python 3 was announced
in 2008... people have known that they needed to start moving away from Python
2 for around _12 years_. If you're panicking now because Python 2 is about to
go away, it's hard not to ask "What were you waiting for?"

~~~
downerending
A big problem is that Python 2 and Python 3 are simply not the same language.
They _look_ a lot alike, but they have substantial differences.

So, it's not just that Python 3 has arrived, but that a separate and widely
used language is being killed, in a way that may very well stick.

That's really a rather bizarre turn, and hasn't happened that much in the
history of programming languages. I'm having trouble thinking of a similar
example. Perhaps Objective-C or VB, but those they were controlled by
corporations.

In the open source world, has the stick ever been used before to kill off a
language?

~~~
gerikson
How do you kill off an open source project? Anyone is free to continue to
maintain and extend Python 2 (possibly under another name).

~~~
downerending
Kind of, but I do think it's accurate to say that a large contingent is trying
to extinguish Python 2 as a language. They wouldn't even deny it.

