Hi Nicholas, On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 07:54:00PM -0400, Nicholas D Steeves wrote: > > At what stage should Python IDEs uploaded to NEW disable or not > install Python 2 support? Now? > > Should Python 2-specific IDEs and/or Python 2-specific educational > materials be removed from the archive? If so, then when? > > Andreas, I've CCed you because we've been in touch in the past, and > because I have friends who do graduate work in bioinformatics on > Debian systems.
Thanks for the trust you have in me specifically but it is wrong to assume that I have a more competent opinion in this topic than other developers who raised their opinion in this thread (rather the contrary since I'm not very deeply involved in Python). Since you asked about bioinformatics I can simply confirm that there is some code around that is used and definitely useful (may be partly without any replacement). That's a pity for the users who might need that code. The only chance we have is to ask for helping hands to port **and** **test** the Python2 code to Python3. Since two GSoC/Outreachy periods I'm mentoring students to write autopkgtests - the next promising outreachy student was just accepted yesterday. So at some point in time we will hopefully be able to at least reproduce the results Python2 code has created in the test cases in a potential Python3 port. Helping hands are always welcome - feel free to send this message to the friends you have. > With the upcoming end of Python 2 in Debian, what can > we do to avoid losing them to CentOS? Everybody chooses the distribution that has advantages for the task that needs to be done. I do not know about CentOS, but Debian is organised as Do-O-cracy. Everybody who realises a problem is free to fix it inside Debian. For instance in 2001 I realised that Debian is not specifically helpful for biologists and medicine. I'm on a good way to fix this. At that time Debian was the only distribution that enabled this way of "fix". Using the menace to switch the distribution as a club to push some Debian developer does not work. I did not interpreted your sentence that way - I just want to express in some more drastical words that you can not push somebody elses agenda on some Debian developer by this kind of argument. The best way to reach something in Debian is to start yourself doing what you need and if you have no success ask for help. > Also, if appropriate and if it > wouldn't be too much work, does Debian have a role in encouraging > new masters and PhD candidates to choose Python 3? I do not think that Debian has such a role. I'd consider it common sense to not use outdated development tools and that is a known fact that was made pretty clear by Python developers. The role of any distribution is to provide existing software and care for a secure and reliable installation process, provide security updates, etc. It is not the role to hand-hold random users to pick their tools sensibly - or rather the only way to implement this hand-holding is if we do not provide anything that should not be used any more. So also drastically spoken: The only possibly answer I could imagine to your question is that the people who are currently asking for the removal of Python2 are fullfilling this role. May be a bit more drastical than you might wish (and my personal opinion is to make the transition as smooth as possible - but see in the beginning about my personal competence in this question) but otherwise we need to trust the common sense of our users. Kind regards Andreas. [1] https://communitywiki.org/wiki/DoOcracy -- http://fam-tille.de