Python, Windows, and Cygwin

[Arc Riley]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Raymond Cote <
rgacote at appropriatesolutions.com> wrote:

> I'd be concerned about pushing new projects into yet unproven territory.


Let's be clear here, Py3 isn't new territory.  Python 3.0.0 was in
alpha/beta for a long time and was released only after it was significantly
bugfixed.  3.0.1 was released not so long ago with a few remaining bug fixes
that were found only after release.

I've been banging Py3 pretty hard and have found it to be rock solid.



> As great as Python 3 is, there's still lots to be done.
> Still a lot of libraries that need to be updated to support 2.x and 3.x.


That's true, and if you're learning Python to work with Django then Py2 is
the way to go.  WSGI is ported to Py3 but it's going to be a bit before the
big frameworks to port.  They may be obsoleted by brand new Py3-only
frameworks before they do.

However, most things are dead simple.  Take for example our case with
Concordance - we needed Genshi and SQLAlchemy, neither of which were
officially ported to Py3 yet.

Genshi took a part of one afternoon to port (
http://hg.concordance-xmpp.org/genshi-py3), much of which was setting up the
SVN->Mercurial mirroring and branches such that tracking Trunk was easy.
SQLAlchemy was trivial (basically just 2to3).

If we weren't developing for Py3 I wouldn't have needed it, and thus
wouldn't have contributed the time to this.  Things get upgraded to Py3 as
there's demand, and the demand won't exist until people choose to use Py3.
If everyone in the community developed a "follower" role Python would never
move forward as a language.


However, proposing that everyone should be out at the far head of the curve
> is, I think, a good way to sour people on the experience when they need to
> get work done today.


In Paul's case, where it's learning to get specific tasks done, sure.  But
when someone's learning because they want to learn a new language, why
should they learn the old version of that language instead of starting off
in the newest?

I find Py3 exciting, not souring.  There's opportunities to contribute
everywhere!  I put a few hours in to port a package, and presto, I've made a
serious contribution to the community.  You need something that's only in
Py2, port it or replace it!

It's not like it takes a great deal of skill or knowledge to do this work,
and after doing so new users get the "I did that" reward.  That's feeling of
ownership is what drives the free software community.
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