[randomsearch]

> Will Python 2.x ever die?

My guess would be that Python 2.x will die at the same time that Python dies, i.e. the "transition" to Python 3 will never really happen, and part of the reason that Python will die is the split between 2 and 3.

I don't think it was obvious that Python 3 would "fail" in this sense, but it seems pretty likely now. Sympathy with Guido; this is essentially a cultural problem rather than a technical one, but as a rule backwards-compatibility tends to be a key component of success as a programming language (or library, or even O/S) evolves.

It's not too late -- a compromise could be found, but it would essentially involve abandoning 3 to a large extent. Not very palatable.

I'm sure Python has many years to go though, so I wouldn't worry about writing new code for the moment. Keep an eye on how things develop and think about jumping to another language if no-one sorts out this mess.

[BuckRogers]

They're not going to sort out the mess. GVR is 100% stubborn on having 2 and 3 live alongside each other till everyone moves to 3. He won't be combining them in any way in a Python 4.0 and slowly removing the Python2 stuff.

I personally won't be moving till GAE, Azure, Amazon, PyPy, PyInstaller, and all Linux distros make the jump. Which at this rate appears to be never.

I'm going to do exactly what you're suggesting, and move off of Python entirely at some point. I'm truly amazed that GVR is dancing with death to kill Python over unicode and cruft. I'm hoping Python (2) becomes the community version and 3 remains the experimental branch.

[tshepang]

"never" is a very strong word:

* PyPy has a 3.x branch, which is apparently nearly complete

* Major distros, Ubuntu and Fedora, are also moving; Debian is also discussing it