Upgrading to Python 3 is simply not an option for me at this time as I am depending on libraries that still require me to be using Python 2: Python 2->3 is an "all or nothing" endeavor due to the horrendously incompatible way they have handled this transition. I mean: the fact that five years /have/ passed and Python 3 is still a silly pipe dream for almost all users of Python should tell you something about how poorly this was done.
Now, of course, to the extent to which I can, I've used Python 2.7's "from __future__ import" mechanism to pull as many features as I can from Python 3 to help transition, but even that has been stupidly painful: importing Python 3's gratuitously different division operator (which you can't automatically process and convert as you need to know whether the denominator is a float or an integer) was very very VERY painful on all of my careful image processing code (suddenly getting, or not getting, half pixel offsets and widths in various places).
Meanwhile, I don't see any benefit at all to me making these changes... requiring "as" instead of a comma for exceptions?... /removing/ the 2.7 ability to mark a string constant with a b-prefix, forcing an ambiguity between 2.6 str and 3.0 bytes? Are you seriously telling me that these were so important as to cause there to be a five year rift in the language community?
In all seriousness, a better usage of my time (rather than messing around porting my 2.x code to 3.x code) would have been to make a patch to Python 3.x to let you "from __future__ import hindsight" to let you use Python 2.x syntax with the Python 3.x interpreter, at which point 99% of these incompatibilities would be irrelevant. Of course, hindsight /is/ 20/20: I can't go back in time and reinvest that time better; but, I certainly have learned my lesson about using Python.
> the fact that five years /have/ passed and Python 3 is still a silly pipe dream for almost all users of Python should tell you something about how poorly this was done.
So far, it has been just how it was meant to be. It was never the goal for Python 3 to be the default Python version by year 2011.
I work with Python 2.x on a regular basis. I have no cause to recommend Python 3.x at this point in the game. Depending on Ubuntu 12/13's choices , I may push my team towards moving away from Python altogether.
I don't see that the Python team really made the right choice here. I have no good transition path from 2 to 3 besides an intensive rewrite.
What matters is whether or not the new version is a realistic option for new projects. It is not. That can't be the goal and if it is, the goal is crap.
Now, of course, to the extent to which I can, I've used Python 2.7's "from __future__ import" mechanism to pull as many features as I can from Python 3 to help transition, but even that has been stupidly painful: importing Python 3's gratuitously different division operator (which you can't automatically process and convert as you need to know whether the denominator is a float or an integer) was very very VERY painful on all of my careful image processing code (suddenly getting, or not getting, half pixel offsets and widths in various places).
Meanwhile, I don't see any benefit at all to me making these changes... requiring "as" instead of a comma for exceptions?... /removing/ the 2.7 ability to mark a string constant with a b-prefix, forcing an ambiguity between 2.6 str and 3.0 bytes? Are you seriously telling me that these were so important as to cause there to be a five year rift in the language community?
In all seriousness, a better usage of my time (rather than messing around porting my 2.x code to 3.x code) would have been to make a patch to Python 3.x to let you "from __future__ import hindsight" to let you use Python 2.x syntax with the Python 3.x interpreter, at which point 99% of these incompatibilities would be irrelevant. Of course, hindsight /is/ 20/20: I can't go back in time and reinvest that time better; but, I certainly have learned my lesson about using Python.