[Biganon]

First I spit my coffee when I read that too, but let me play devil's advocate (because I pretty much disagree with the entirety of his rant) : he's pointing out that since it's technically feasible to write a Python 2 interpreter in Python 3, and since it should even be pretty easy since the two languages do not differ immensely, then the only reason why it hasn't been done and there's no -2 flag to python3 has to be an ideological reason, a manipulation by the core devs to impose their ideas by force.

It's extremely badly conveyed but that's what I got out of it by keeping reading.

I do disagree with him on all the rest though, especially strings. It didn't "just work" before, it failed silently and who knows how much disaster he or his readers have caused because of it. Now at least you can't be wrong anymore. For a language heavily used on the web, it's hugely important to understand where your strings are coming from and where they're going to, and how.

Besides, Python is not a frigging "beginners language". Just because Python (and admittedly especially Python 2) is generally easy to grasp as a first language doesn't mean it's its purpose, nor should it constrain itself toward this goal. It's used in a million of different areas, including pretty sensitive ones. It's now become a more mature language, reaching for exactitude and consistency. Just because Zac no longer has an easy toy language to point script kiddies to so they can "learn to program" by reading one website doesn't mean Python is to blame.