On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 19:23, Stefan Sperling <stsp_at_elego.de> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 05:49:43PM +0100, Greg Stein wrote:
>> I say it complicated things. More methods instead of fewer. Lots of
>> additional comparisons instead of just using cmp(). Additional logic.
>>
>> And "Python 3.0 compatibility" for scripts intended for 2.4 doesn't
>> add any benefit.
>
> Won't we eventually have to depend on Python 3.x, when Python 2.x is
> being phased out in a few years or whenever they're planning to do it?
>
> At some point, we'll have to do what Arfrever is doing anyway.
> If we can do some of the necessary conversion work now, and have
> someone how is eager to do it, even in a way that preserves compatibility
> with Python 2.x, I don't think it's bad. Especially because converting
> to Python 3.x does not seem to be trivial.
>
> I'm not talking about particular scripts that might well not be useful
> anymore in a few years (think change-wc-format.py). We don't need to
> update every line of our Python code. But I don't think there is anything
> wrong with the general idea of trying to be Python 3.x-compatible as much
> as possible, even at the cost of temporary extra complexity in the
> scripts. Eventually, we can drop the Python 2.x code and things will
> become simpler again.
I agree in principle, and Arfrever's work has been a great help for
our code. He's been making it more consistent, throwing out the
*really* old crap, and cleaning up some weirdnesses.
But.
There are some changes (like these past two revs) which just make it
more complex than a plain 2.x needs to be.
Note that 2.x is going to be around for *years*. Five? Ten? There is
not going to be a string impetus to move to 3.x for a long while. And
Python 3 is going to need to be installed on a lot more platforms as a
base dependency for it to be worthwhile, especially since 2.x will
contine to be installed. Even the recent "Unladen Swallow" project is
based off of 2.x. So five years of "little pain" adds up to "lots of
pain". When we decide to switch, then we can do it in a month and be
done with it.
Cheers,
-g
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Received on 2009-03-29 20:02:43 CEST