On Mon, 2017-03-27 at 12:47 -0400, Gerald Wiltse wrote: > […] > Specifically, reaching out to the Python maintainers for > guidance. In > hindsight, someone deeply involved usually has a very clear vision of > "What > we should have done instead was...". It would be a major missed > opportunity if nobody pursues that avenue. > […]
I cannot speak for the core developers, but I am sure I could ask them via the various Python mailing lists. The introduction of Python 3 was not handled well in my view from the social and management perspective and this led to a majority of the tribalism issues that were seen. The changes to the data model were large, and needed, and affected library writers more than end users. The biggest change that affected end users was the shift from ASCII to Unicode as the representation of strings. This broke any code using strings for networking. Not having packages such as future and six, and tools such as 2to3 properly in place before the mass push to Python 3 was a bit of a problem. However the single biggest problem was that many influential people said "Python 3, no way" from the outset. Also a couple of high profile projects said "the issue of strings is too big, we will not change". A well-thought of Python distribution refused to accept the existence of Python 3, and out of that that distribution is now dead and Anaconda/Miniconda from Continuum Analytics is now the default distribution for people not use an OS with packaging – or actually sometimes anyway. Also a few Linux distributions based on mass use of Python are based on code that is at least a decade old (Scientific Linux, I am looking at you). All of this led to a Python 2 vs Python 3 warfare that was almost totally nothing to do with technicalities. It was to do with vested interests and financial muscle. It became tribal almost like the Green/Purple Drazi in "Geometry of Shadows" an episode of Babylon 5 htt ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcBTOU7RvbU . It has taken a long time for Python 3 to become ascendant but ascendant it is. The old "stick with Python 2" project have quietly enabled Python 3 and tried to avoid any publicity about this. So the change was a technical success and a management and social failure. Thus changing the package names is a management problem not a technical problem. So the only real question is how to enable redirection at dynamic link time. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.win...@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: rus...@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
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