[potatofarmer45]

For a large deployment of our SaaS software last year, in order to connect to the raw data for their POS, we discovered they were on mainframes running UNIX. Not Linux, Unix. We had to go to a local library, in the old archived basement to find books that guided us on what the hell we were doing.

50 years from now, with new completely different languages being vogue, some poor engineer is going to have to find a book for Python2.

[beatgammit]

There are plenty of Unix systems out there, such as AIX (and arguably FreeBSD, though it's not certified), that are derived from and could be called UNIX. These systems are still maintained today and generally have the philosophy of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And there's definitely some sense in that, and I wish more software projects followed that philosophy.

If you take C code from K&R C, it'll likely still compile with current C compilers. Likewise, I'm sure most C projects from the 80s still compile with current compilers, perhaps with minor changes.

FreeBSD often chooses to improve existing tools instead of replacing them, so it would look more familiar to an old Unix expert than Linux, and there's some solid logic to that.

I think it's a little sad that we have these big disruptive changes like Python 2 -> 3, when Python 2 still works fine and can still be improved without breaking backwards compatibility. Honestly, I think it makes sense to have disruptive changes like that be treated as a new language instead of completely dropping support. I like how the Rest project is approaching it with building compatibility for older versions of the language into current compilers, so you can get the best of backwards compat and modern changes.

[keyle]

Fun story :)

On the plus side, the Python2 will probably not look that different from Python6 :)

[potatofarmer45]

I'm sure by then there'll be brainwave controlled programming and the idea of using a keyboard with defined syntaxes will be as silly as punching cards sound to us today haha