Python 2.7 is stable and useful now.. it is a lot of C code implementing a scripting language. There are a lot of libraries that work well right now, that took hundreds of skilled years of work to build.
The same can be said thousands of 16 bit applications that are no longer supported on 64-bit architecture. Python 2.7 isn't being deleted from the face of the Earth. You're just going to have to pay people to maintain your legacy codebase because after 10 years of knowing it will become obsolete you stuck with it.
>The same can be said thousands of 16 bit applications that are no longer supported on 64-bit architecture.
And some of those are a big loss as well.
But most of them are obsolete and deprecated (because e.g. Office suites, OSes and gaming moved on) in a way that Python 2.x programs used in businesses are not.
>But most of them are obsolete and deprecated (because e.g. Office suites, OSes and gaming moved on) in a way that Python 2.x programs used in businesses are not.
Businesses that fail to adapt to changing markets/technology have nobody to blame but themselves when they've had 10 years to adapt or die. I struggle to find any sympathy for them outside of employees ringing the death bell who were ignored. Also, just to reiterate, 2.7 won't be going anywhere - businesses will need to accept it will cost them more to stick with it. That's the price paid for holding onto technical debt.
>Some of the companies using Cobol or other such older technologies (e.g. Java 1.4) are among the most valuable on earth.
And they pay consultants and contractors in order to continue to do so. I'm not sure I'm seeing where the problem is? Want to stick with Python 2.7? Hire specialists. Problem solved. You just no longer get free labor from the maintainers of the language.