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by midgetjones 4603 days ago
I would have been more interested in learning Python if there wasn't such a great divide. I read the first chapter of several books that said "Python 3 is out, but we're going to stick with 2.7 because too much shit is broken".
3 comments
pdonis 4603 days ago
That was true early on in Python 3, but it's not true now.
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jzwinck 4603 days ago
People have been saying this for three years, but it's not true now.
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jzwinck 4603 days ago
As someone who learned Python when 3.2 came out, I completely agree with you. I have only really used Python 2.7!

Because too much shit is broken (NumPy, hello). Because Python 3 has been the default on basically no system ever (OK, maybe this is changing right now, slowly).

As Guido says, it's been five years and it will take another five. This whole experiment has been a huge misstep for Python, an absolutely massive gaffe. Some of Python's peers did it too, roughly around the same time (Perl, and to a lesser extent Ruby).

Python (Guido?) noticed its own maturity a bit too late. The damage is incredible; along with the performance stuff (which is in a way easier to overcome) this may be a key factor leading to the fall of a great language.

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nron 4603 days ago
On the other hand, my experience has been very different: I learned Python when 3.2 was current as well, using Lutz' "Learning Python", which takes the approach of "teach Python 3, and explain how 2 is different whenever necessary". I've followed suit and taken the approach of writing Python 3 code first, and to make it work on 2.7 only when I need to, which I found fairly easy to do, though it can make the code a bit uglier sadly (writing cross-version-compatible metaclass code is the one that annoys me, since it adds some verbosity).

I'm looking forward to 2.x dying out to eliminate that retrofitting step (and it's happening: the improving dependency landscape means I find I have to do it less and less often), but I've not experienced any major pain overall. From where I'm sitting, Python 3 is a better, cleaner language, and as someone new to Python, I'm happier for it.

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chilldream 4602 days ago
My story is similar, and I learned Python 3.2 for Numpy.
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ac29 4603 days ago
NumPy works fine on python 3.
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caligo 4603 days ago
Are those books, books that came out this year?
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