[toyg]

I feel a bit like you’re trying to rewrite history here.

When you launched it, you called it “Python 2.8”. You posted it everywhere to gain traction, and didn’t rename it until the PSF and Guido got you by the ear, so to speak. There was no mention of “everything but str” or whatever, as far as I recall.

It was an outright (and hostile) attempt to fork - something that, going by your words here, I guess you now recognise as a mistake. I guess saying “I screwed up” is hard.

[fao_]

Can you provide citations for your claims? The commentary in the github renaming issue from 2016(0) seems pretty jovial and has the tone of "oh, actually we should change that, oops" rather than "we WILL replace python!". The comments by guido and harris reinforce this perspective:

    > gvanrossum commented on Dec 10, 2016
    > Since I was asked: The project's name (and its binary name) need to 
    > change. They are misleading. The rest looks acceptable according to 
    > Python's license. This is not an endorsement (far from it).

    > naftaliharris commented on Dec 10, 2016
    > I don't mind renaming this project. Any other suggestions for good 
    > names? I personally like "Pythonesque (/usr/bin/pesque)" the best so 
    > far, thanks @dbohdan! :-)
    >
    > @VanL, not that I'm necessarily picking that, but would a name like
    > that be acceptable?

When you're in a community or a space, actions that are unintentionally hostile towards that community or space, can be seen as intentionally hostile by the members, and if you only hear about it second-hand, or you spend a lot of time around the group, that belief can be reinforced through the discussions and gripes the group has about it(1).

(0): https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon/issues/47 (1): That's not to say there aren't bona fide intentionally hostile actions that happen, but rather that's how actions that aren't intended to be hostile can be remembered and percieved as such.

[toyg]

It was all very disingenuous. It was obvious to everyone, after 8 years of flames, that such a move would have been incendiary. Naftali played dumb only after he was called out on it.

I'm not saying it was entirely his fault - certain widely-heard voices in the community had been advocating for this to happen, in practice, for several months; he saw an opportunity and went for it. I just object to the rewrite of history to justify the mistakes of the past.

[fao_]

> It was all very disingenuous. It was obvious to everyone, after 8 years of flames, that such a move would have been incendiary. Naftali played dumb only after he was called out on it.

Have you considered that not everyone who forks something participates in the original community?

> I just object to the rewrite of history to justify the mistakes of the past.

So far there has been no evidence for the stated claim, just supposition and rumour. So as-is there's no reason for anyone here to believe that "history is being rewritten" aside from easily-mistaken word of mouth.

These days most discussions over the internet happen via the written word, so it's difficult to believe that you can't find records from IRC, Github, or Email to support your contention that it was hostile.

[loeg]

You're coloring the history with a lot more hostility than the reality. And the condescension is really unnecessary.

This matches the pattern of Python.org developers and python 3 aficionados being unnecessarily hostile and condescending to the concerns of Python 2 language users. You saw that in 2010; you saw it again in 2015; and you can see it in these threads today.

[joshuamorton]

Can you explain the specific actions that were taken that didn't cater to, as you say, "python2 language users"? A 12 year migration timeline seems, to me, to be fairly lax.

[strenholme]

I saw a lot of hostility right here in 2019 when I pointed out some Python 2 programs are nay to impossible to port to Python 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21258527

[joshuamorton]

None of the things you mentioned are particularly difficult though. In fact you're still in the realm of changes that can be trivially automated with https://python-modernize.readthedocs.io/en/latest/fixers.htm..., the three issues you describe are the print, xrange_six, and classic_division fixers.

It's certainly possible that there are parts of the migration that would be tricky, a quick skim of the file didn't give me any obvious ones, but it's also huge and hard to read, so I very well could have missed something.

Most of the truly challenging things to migrate involved some combination of extension modules, heavy metaprogramming (eval/exec), and apis which change significantly between 2 and 3 (most of which are string related, but some libraries also decided to do backwards incompatible things)

[talentedcoin]

I am definitely guilty of being "hostile and condescending" to people asking the Python.org developers to waste time supporting Python 2. Please just stop. This time would be better spent working on the packaging situation rather than relitigating the last 12 years.

If people still want to work on Python 2 projects that's fine and it's their choice, but it's time to just let the rest of us go our own way.

[tyrust]

Context, since I had never heard of this:

   * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13144713

   * https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon/issues/47#issuecomment-277081725

[behindsight]

Thanks, I appreciate the context links

(friendly note: code blocks break clickable links)

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13144713

2: https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon/issues/47#issuecomm...

[dang]

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13453410

[tyrust]

Doh, thanks!

[lioeters]

I wouldn't call it a "hostile" fork. Imagine what motivated him to fork in the first place. He and many others were between a rock and a hard place, and a fork was a possible way out.

At the time, the author stated:

> I picked [the name "Python 2.8"] initially since when talking with friends about this project it conveyed pretty darn immediately what the project is and does. I'd be very keen to hear people's suggestions for alternate names!

This was no mistake or screw up at all. In fact, the project served his purpose for the time, and even though he's moved on, there are others who like it enough to maintain or improve it.

A fork is (or can be) a healthy, natural thing that happens.

[Ensorceled]

Do you have any references that support the level of invective you are displaying? I feel you are projecting a great deal of ill will on the original author that I, personally, didn't feel or see.

[u801e]

As a general question, why is forking a project perceived as hostile? I always thought that forking an open source project was something that was encouraged if one's proposed contributions were not incorporated into the original project.

[unixhero]

Let's go easy on the ad hominems here.