[linspace]

> who care about large legacy code bases

It's clear that Python's main strength is its vast libraries, priority number one is not breaking them. If it could be possible to speed up Python without breaking changes I would be surprised precisely because with so much large codebases speed and efficiency would translate directly to money.

[dikei]

Yeah, it took over a decade to switch from Py2 to Py3 due to the breaking changes it brought. I'd rather not to have such a large change again, ever.

[poulpy123]

They really missed an opportunity when they made the switch from py2 to 3 to break things a bit more but give more improvement in exchange

[linspace]

Completely agree. I think GvR was too conservative. And yet he had lot of backslash, it's easy for me now to criticize several years later after the fact, I only have respect for the work done. I think it was in the mind of everyone the Perl 5/Perl 6 transition.