
Python 3 adoption - joshbaptiste
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/640181/413bf119705332c7/
======
cookiecaper
Acknowledging that I have obviously thought about it a lot less than this guy,
my experience of switching to Py3 hasn't been that bad. I've been using Py3
exclusively for about 3 years now. Everything I want has been ported, except
one or two packages which have Py3-compatible successors. I have been
thoroughly enjoying the improvements of Python 3.

[http://caniusepython3.com](http://caniusepython3.com) 's count is misleading
because it appears to include almost all packages hosted in PyPI. Many of
these haven't been updated in many years and many were never very serious
projects. [https://python3wos.appspot.com](https://python3wos.appspot.com) is
much more fair, cataloging 200 widely-used Python libraries. Only 17 of these
don't have a Python 3 version yet. I remember when 80% of that wall was red.

I use Arch. Arch shipped Python 3 as the default Python in 2011 iirc. It was
bumpy for a while, but now I scarcely ever have problems with it. I think the
most important step for Python 3's adoption is to get RHEL and Debian (and
their respective downstreams) to promote Python 3 to the default. It's time;
the old arguments that it's an inordinate amount of work to support Py3 as the
default don't really hold anymore. RHEL and Debian have huge cultural
influence by deeming a version "enterprise-ready" and making it default.

Here's to Python 3. We're on the cusp of killing off 2 for new development.
Let's not backslide.

~~~
keypusher
I do agree that if we see RHEL go to python3 as the default that would usher
in major changes. However, Red Hat does not like to break backwards
compatibility for its customers, and shipping python3 as the default would do
that. This isn't an issue for Arch, as they do not rely on enterprise support
contracts for their business model. However, this is part of the reason you
don't see mission critical infrastructure running Arch. Also keep in mind that
important operating system tools in rhel/fedora/etc rely on python, such as
the yum package manager.

~~~
johnny22
Fedora 22 is/was switching the default package manager to dnf over yum. Fedora
23 should have Python 3 as default (although /usr/bin/python will still point
to python 2.x)
[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Python_3_as_Default](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Python_3_as_Default)

~~~
keypusher
Interesting. The page you linked actually seems to suggest they are removing
/usr/bin/python or symlinking it to python3. It's part of the scope section.
As far as I understand, whatever /usr/bin/python points to is "the default",
so I'm not sure how you could switch "the default" and still have
/usr/bin/python point to 2.x. So anyway, if Fedora goes to python3 in 2 years
(23 release?) then it would probably be at least 5 years before we see RHEL
pick up those changes, especially if it includes a change to the package
manager and Anaconda (the os installer), both of which are central to RHEL. My
guess is that Red Hat are going to be very careful pulling these changes in
for enterprise.

------
keypusher
> Van Rossum suggested that someone create an informational PEP to start
> working on the problem.

At this point it may require more leadership than an informational PEP. They
let the community take their time adopting it, and it still doesn't feel like
there is any rush to adoption. And that create a split in the community,
fractured module dependencies, and 5 years later it still doesn't seem to have
found majority support. And for what? Most users probably won't notice more
than Unicode strings, a few syntax changes such as the print function, maybe
the exception handling. It didn't change any of the language fundamentals, or
address any common criticism of the language such as speed, concurrency or the
type system. There are nice changes in Python 3 under the hood, but I'm
starting to wonder if the cost was truly worth it.

------
Fannon
Just yesterday I've deeply regretted installing Python3, because some build
scripts (atom-shell, a fairly new project) failed badly. Things like that
happend regularly. Right now I can only install both Python2 and Python3 and
adjust my PATH variables, depending on what I want to do.

The Python community beeing so split and "backward-oriented" is really the
main reason why I wouldn't consider Python, though I like many aspects of the
language.

