Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com>: > If the interpreter were to include every dialect of "old Python", then > it would have a lot more than two branches. They would, in fact, > increase exponentially with every Python version.
It shouldn't be *that bad*; the linux kernel is grappling with the glut of system calls, but they are managing it reasonably well. I don't see why Python, especially at this mature stage, couldn't adopt a similar stance *going forward*. In fact, not every syntax change requires special backwards-compatibility treatment in the compiler. Constructs that used to be illegal might become legal (say, try-except-finally). They don't require any attention. Even new keywords have a very small impact on the parser; it should be a simple matter of enabling dictionary entries. > Fortunately, there is an alternative. You can specify the version of > Python like this: > > #!/usr/local/bin/python3.4 Well, * you won't be finding old Python versions on newer operating system distributions, * even <URL: http://www.python.org/downloads/> isn't all that extensive and * the program may import modules that were written in different Python dialects. Marko -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list