For the vast majority that's still Python2. For those starting new projects that might be Go, Elixir, Python2 or Python3.
Just because some entity like the PSF declares Python3 the future doesn't make it so. Even if some people buy into it and believe it. It has to take over from the bottom up and its been floundering since 3.0 landed in 2008.
Like it or not, the fact of the matter is: for Python programmers, Python 3 is the future. It's really only a matter of time, even if it's much more time than was expected.
For me Python's strength is the libraries not the language, Python 3 decided to not support all this libraries, so calling it laziness for users to not immediately move to python 3 is a really bad way to put it.
So, what have the library developers been doing for the past 8 years? Probably adding features to the Python 2 version of the library. Why? Because Python 3 has seen low adoption. Why? Because the libraries haven't been updated yet. Why? ...
It's an endless cycle. If people want Python 3 to be adopted more widely, they ought to adopt it themselves (and many programmers have, though clearly not enough).
Python3 was lazy. Demanding that everyone including PyPy port, is lazy. Let Python3 live or die based on its technical merits like every other piece of technology.
Not to mention I wish the sword you're wielding cut both ways. You aren't entitled to demand someone else's labor any more than your buddies that litter every PyPy post demanding better Python3 support are. I hope you're harassing them for being lazy.
You made your own choice. You should have picked based on technical superiority rather than propaganda. To be honest with you, you should be ignored as you chose VERY poorly. Don't dare tell someone else what to use.
There are so many better choices to build new software in today than Python3. Python2 on PyPy is one of those. Those people can still port to Python3 if it ever does make sense. Even if that idea clearly threatens some of you, that's the smart play.
But the fact of the matter is that Python 3 is being actively developed, whereas Python 2 is in maintenance mode, and for how much longer? One of these days, Python 2 will become unsupported, and at that time you either finally move to Python 3, or you fork -- at which point you're no longer, strictly-speaking, programming in Python.
You're right that it's also lazy for people to simply demand Python 3 support from the PyPy project without being willing to invest in the effort. I have nothing to add to that, really.
I should also add that I'm probably one of the laziest programmers to ever exist, so I'm not trying to demonstrate superiority or anything like that. I'm simply pointing out that refusing to use Python 3 just because it hasn't seen much uptake only perpetuates the problem.
When I say lazy in this post, I mean simply acting on one's self-interests. Because that's what every party involved here is doing.
It's important to note the difference between Python the language, and CPython. Using Python2 doesn't mean you're using some deprecated language, there's virtually no difference. That's what made the break such a shame honestly. Moving to Python3 with new code is easy. Most people just have few great reasons to now with their existing projects.
People need to stop harassing the community and start harassing Guido van Rossum and the core dev team. Usually when people make a mistake, people fix it. GvR and his rogue band of developers have not corrected the Python3 mistake in any way. They've simply continued their mistake for so long, that people are becoming twisted thinking that it's EVERYONE ELSE who is at fault! Amazing really.
CPython2 maintenance mode is just a way for the core dev team to maintain their grip around this whole debacle. If they had the guts to dump it in 2015 they would've lost complete control of the situation. It wasn't out of compassion as they say. Because they simply removed the incentive for a 3rd party to swoop in and takeover CPython2.
Even that is backfiring now. People[0] are noticing how Python3 is turning into feature soup, which is never an improvement. Thus Python2's conservatism is starting to be seen as an asset.
As far as CPython3 being under active development, so is PyPy and it's superior to CPython. The language doesn't change too much at this point. Python is Python for the most part. When the time comes for someone on 2 to move to 3, it will be a non-issue. They're not "losing out" today in any way by acting in their best interests using 2.
Python3 has nothing that didn't already exist as a 3rd party library, nor does it have anything that doesn't exist in form of a backport. Thus technical innovation contained within is zero.
Programmers aren't stupid. And I think the PSF folks think we are. Or just blatantly disregard the community that truly made Python what it is.
The existing Python2 community is overtly disrespected when called "lazy" and all this type of harassment that goes on. I know I'm in the majority opinion because upvotes don't lie.
I'm just a guy who likes "Python", the language. I can't blame you for not using it and honestly, what a mess Guido and his core dev team has created right?
Python is my preference but I'm not held hostage by the PSF or Python3. I use Python2, Python3, Boo, PyPy. I don't hate Python3 and don't know anyone who does. It's just no slam dunk, and that's the core development team's fault- and they may lose their battle against Python fans as a result. I do highly dislike the groupthink about Python3, with a portion of the Python community on this topic.
One more thing to add, is Python3 inevitable? No. It just fragmented the Python ecosystem. Nothing more. We all won't be on a single version again. GvR and his band of rogue developers should be ashamed of themselves. Again, change happens from the bottom up. Not top down. They failed the community and should abdicate their roles but I'm afraid their egos are too big.
[0]http://learning-python.com/books/python-changes-2014-plus.ht...
i think you should abdicate from posting on HN about Python. you introduce conflict where there was only laziness. go to politics, leave engineers out of it.
Reading comprehension is key. I was defending against those creating conflict. There's nothing more political than Python3. And overthrow all BDFLs. That was the whole point, that went right over your head. You are not an engineer. Go back to Reddit.
The irony of lazy people calling other people lazy is pretty hilarious. Since you harass the PyPy team and 90% of the Python community to port to 3 while you remain a non-contributing zero? There's only one thing to say to you:
Get to porting.
'Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them. '
While adding a lot of new substance to a topic that breaks the mold of "port PyPy to Python3" and how to achieve those goals. Perhaps my tone was a little strong and regrettable. I did break this one by accident but mostly out of frustration to a substanceless post. I regret the error.
'Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted. '
It isn't easy to remain civil and substantive in response to comments that break the rules, especially when one is annoyed. I don't get it right all the time myself.
I agree that Python core devs should have not made such breaking changes, And hindsight is 20/20, even for them. I also am a bit annoyed that they've been pretty stubborn about adding additional compatibility layers between the versions. (If six (maintained by a core dev) can help with compatibility, why can't the standard library have those shims too? :)
I also like Go's approach to unicode better than Python 3's approach.
"harassing" the core devs may have been helpful in back in 2008-2012, however, at this point it's a little late to start complaining. I doubt it will help at all.
> Python2's conservatism is starting to be seen as an asset
I totally agree. It's an unfortunate problem.
> is Python3 inevitable?
Yes. It's only a matter of time.
- Django is planning on removing Python 2 support from master in January.
- Nearly all popular libraries are compatible or have compatible forks.
- Large python projects, like OpenStack are putting in the work to be Python 3 compatible. http://blogs.rdoproject.org/7894/status-of-python-3-in-opens...
- Ubuntu and Fedora now ship without /usr/bin/python available by default. RHEL/CentOS 8 may very well do the same.
- Debian has plans of removing Python 2 completely from it's repository not long after PSF drops support.
It will more than likely hurt them more than it hurts Python2 (I also don't understand the obsession with people wanting to kill or hurt Python2). People and companies may be more likely to start new projects in Flask or another alternative, maybe even fork Django which would be a disaster for them.
But as of today, Django's roadmap has the LTS release that supports 2.x as an unknown EOL. So it won't be anytime soon.
Overall I tend to agree that Python3 will eventually take over. That wasn't what I was arguing and I never said otherwise in my posts. My problem is with the harassment over Python2 folks to port and all the associated nonsense. That's the part that is more counterproductive than anything.
"A matter of time" is a really bad last leg to stand on as well, because time has an awfully broad range. :)
As far as the other points, I have doubts about the impact of Ubuntu or others defaulting to Python3. That won't stop me from building for PyPy, I can say that at least.
In general I feel that I'm on a similar page to your stance though. I do use Python3, and have since the 3.0 release in testing alone. For someone who has tried every release and found performance issues and bugs galore, it's a testament that I (and others) haven't given up completely. I think many have.
By now the lack of Python 3 is actually a very good filter when choosing a library: To me it says badly maintained. Many of the libraries which do not support Python 3 are also still hosted on SourceForge.
You are going to start seeing libraries come out that don't test on Python 2.6 and don't work there either.
This is a seriously unhealthy attitude for software engineering. This attitude will create legacy systems and legacy systems that will live on forever.
The success of 2.7 is an amazing thing. Most languages have one great major version, some have zero, Python has two.
Look at it this way:
1) I can spend 2 days writing, testing, reviewing and pushing code that works perfectly fine in Python 2, or
2) I can spend a couple of weeks+ porting all the libraries I need for the tool to add python 3 support, maintaining backwards compatibility, fixing tests, reviewing etc. etc. etc., then spend 2 days to write the actual code I started out needing to do.
Which one do you think I'm going to be able to justify, given there is always a backlog of work? Multiple weeks of developer time is a non-trivial expense. There has to be a significant technical advantage to justify the effort and for a lot of things that Python is used for there just isn't enough of one.
I'm not anti-Python 3. I like it, in fact. Where I can use it, I do. It's just a lot of the time I can't because of all of the associated extra work involved.