On: Extend Python 2.7 life till 2020

[lucb1e]

This seems weird to me. Won't this cause a fork in Python at some point, where the 2.7 developers continue on 2.8 or rename it entirely, and another fork continues on what is now Python 3?

[deckiedan → lucb1e]

Python 2.7 hasn't has any improvements since python 3 began, and it won't. All this announcment means is that Python 2.7 will continue to get security/support for another 5 years.

[jmoiron → deckiedan]

Python 2.7 was released after 3.1 and contains many features backported from the 3.x series in order to ease migration.

[deckiedan → jmoiron]

Ah, yeah. Sorry, my history is a little hazy. I claim I was going for the spirit of the situation, rather than the details... ;-)

[claystu → lucb1e]

That was my first thought too.

Who knows where 3.x will be in 6 years, but now a huge number of people will continue to develop in the 2.x series with no worries. Six years feels like a long time when you're at the beginning of them. By the end, maybe it will be easier to just tweak the Python 2.x codebase than switch everything to 3.x.

[z3phyr → lucb1e]

That depends on how the BDFL of the community dictates. Generally, all the people who matter follow their BDFL religiously.

[grayclhn → lucb1e]

I think that this move is intended to prevent a fork like that.