[jimmyswimmy]

I guess we're getting off topic here but can't help myself.

> ...5+ years in the software world is an eternity.

There is no particular reason why we can't maintain stability. I can still run [some] Microsoft DOS programs from the '80s, though finally most of them need DOSBox to run. For the scientific programming community we need to be able to rely on relatively ancient code. This is why FORTRAN and Matlab are still used. For example the release notes for g77 at https://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/ say

> Legacy g77 code will compile fine in almost all cases

That's code from 1977 - 40 years ago! And the release notes are just nudging people towards the 1995 language standard, not declaring deprecation.

[wyldfire]

> There is no particular reason why we can't maintain stability. I can still run [some] Microsoft DOS programs from the '80s

In fact, there isn't, you are 100% correct. I don't think anyone on the python dev team thinks that somehow 2.7 "can't" be maintained.

Grab the 2.7 branch [1] and build and test it on your favorite OS. If it still works tomorrow or next year, or in the 2080s, congratulations! You got a working product and you apparently didn't need any support.

> That's code from 1977 - 40 years ago!

Python's popularity will ensure that some group, somewhere will champion 2.7. And maybe in ~2030 we'll still see active support.

[1] https://github.com/python/cpython/tree/2.7

[sametmax]

But you can. You will be able to run Python 2 in 5 years if you want. Nobody prevents you too. The official community will just stop working on it. Just like for DOS, which an alternative community picked up.