> Van Rossum is totally right in saying that he never wants a Python 4 for that reason, so it seems at least he learned a little bit since then.

Just because the BFDL doesn't increment the major version doesn't change the fact that myriad breaking changes arrive in Python 3 PEPs.

This is purely an optics hack. Python 3.0 is very different from Python 3.13. Had the frog not been boiled slowly, it might as well have been Python 4.

The people who could stop this churn will not. It's a full-employment ticket for them, chasing dot-release upgrades and educating us about changes that we couldn't live without but somehow did for decades.

It takes a big person to say when something is good enough despite its warts. Contrast the Python churn with Linux and git: never break user space.