

Python 3000 Alpha 1 Released - mattculbreth
http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.0/

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ivankirigin
I liked this overview by Guido on Python 3000. I like the changes
<http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=208549>

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euccastro
The thing that I admire the most about this is how small a change Py3K really
is, considering it's the first major compatibility breaking release AFAIK. The
change from 1.x to 2.x version numbers was for historical and cosmetic
reasons: if you wrote a module in Python 1.5 there's a very good chance you
can run it in Python 2.5 with only trivial modifications at worst (e.g., one
of your identifiers has become a keyword). This is a testament to the
excellent taste of the Python designers, and to their rare mix of restraint
and practicality.

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mattculbreth
The print(x) instead of print x thing is going to kill me in interactive
sessions. I can feel it now. It's those little things that get ingrained in
your daily work that are hard to break.

~~~
sri
I made this <http://defcraft.org/hacks/pycmds/pii.py> to help define
"commands" in the interactive interpreter. Commands like "ls" and "h os".

"ls" is a simple command -- invokes the Unix command "ls -l". A more
complicated one: "h os" -- run help on the os module (just like "help(os)").
This is kinda tricky because "h os" is actually a syntax error in Python. When
interactive, I catch syntax errors and see if they are user defined commands,
in which case I execute the desired command. This works for Python 2.5, but
shouldn't be too hard to port to Python 3.0.

I briefly looked at IPython, but that seemed to complicated for my needs.

(Also, <http://defcraft.org/hacks/pycmds/strftime_helper.py> uses the above
file to help the user with strftime spec usage. I can never remember all the
special characters.)

~~~
nirs
Nice!

We use similar technic with hpy - you type in Hebrew Python
<http://nirs.freeshell.org/code/hpy/> , then each line is translated to Python
and executed.

How do create more fancy links here?

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mattculbreth
I guess this will cause ANOTHER Reddit rewrite.

~~~
nostrademons
Nah, they'll rewrite it in Erlang next. ;-)

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simpleenigma
Watch the synde comments while Erlang fans are around :-)

~~~
nostrademons
You only think I'm joking. <http://spez.name/> ;-)

(Disclaimer: I have no inside information about Reddit or its future plans. I
really wouldn't be terribly surprised if they _did_ rewrite it in Erlang,
though.)

~~~
simpleenigma
LOL ... If they did I might actually go there ... forget that I might try to
get a job there ... no forget that too ... I'll just make my Erlang project
good enough to buy his :-)

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davidw
> We're switching to a model known from Java: (immutable) text strings are
> Unicode, and binary data is represented by a separate mutable "bytes" data
> type.

Tcl had that something like 5 years ago. Of course, that's one of the reasons
it's slower...

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palish
Sheesh.. Emotions are running hot in this thread.

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rob
If only it was as fast as Ruby.

~~~
jamiequint
If only Ruby had built in Unicode support

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amichail
Why is Python still interesting? Just use Scala.

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AF
I don't see the equivalence. Some people don't want to the bloat of the JVM,
nor the bloat of Java libraries themselves. Some people prefer dynamic typing
over static typing (and yes, I know Scala is type-inferred). Some people love
Python's libraries and/or community.

It isn't clear to me why Scala is obviously better than Python as you imply.

~~~
amichail
Why do you care about the bloat of the JVM? Memory is cheap.

The Java libraries are rather extensive. I would rather have too much than too
little.

Static typing is a big win, particularly if you don't have to declare
everything (Scala has local type inference).

Sure, there are lots of bright people using Python. But Scala is a better
language and has bright users also.

If you are unfamiliar with Scala, take a look at this:

<http://www.scala-lang.org/docu/files/ScalaByExample.pdf>

~~~
menloparkbum
It is as if someone took all the things that are gross about Java, CAML, and
Smalltalk, and combined them into a single language.

~~~
amichail
Have you tried Scala?

