I realize it, but (1) even after large libraries support 3 there will still be a long tail of libraries that aren't ported (and will never be), and (2) I see very little value in porting our very large code bases to Python 3, with its breaking changes and subtle behavioral differences that need to be thoroughly tested. There's no must-have feature for us to justify that effort, so we won't be making the switch for the foreseeable future.
IMO Python should have put a lot more effort into backwards compatibility when releasing Python 3. I'm genuinely concerned that this release has killed Python, and I'm not alone.
That's too bad. We've started writing all new code in 3, and now I can't stand working with 2. It feels clunky and old in comparison. A year ago I never would have believed I could feel that way, but I do: I will not willingly (that is, absent strong business reasons) write Python 2 code again.
That should be a non-issue unless you require one of those libraries.
> There's no must-have feature for us to justify that effort, so we won't be making the switch for the foreseeable future.
There's no reason for making the switch if you're going to ditch your code base in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, you'll have to justify your decision in the unforeseeable future. And thereafter.
That's kind of a truism, isn't it? I don't understand the dismissiveness - there's certainly a sizable portion of users that use libraries other than the top 50 most popular.
In the end, you should ask yourself some questions:
Am I starting a new project or continuing an older one? If the former one, Python 3 should be preferred unless some library I need is only available for Python 2. If the latter, I should ask if the cost of migrating my codebase makes sense. If not, Python 2 is still a viable choice until 2020 at least.
Eventually, don't you think that you will start using a more modern version of Python?
You may have also missed the other features from 3.0 to 3.6. Cumulatively they are substantial.
Of course I pray every night to Eris that such a fiasko will never happen to Elixir.