There is a discussion simmering over Python 3000 again thanks to Guido’s post. And thanks to that post this time it is much more focused and constructive. I see this as part of an ongoing iterative process, one I think we should consider formalizing. First an overview of the discussions so far (timeline determined by various RSS aggregators).
- Guido Van Rossum’s weblog - Python 3000 Status Update (Long!)
- Lambda the Ultimate - Python 3000 Status Update
- Python Secret Weblog - Brief Python 3000 thoughts
- Coder Who Says Py - Responding to people’s reactions to Guido’s Py3K blog post
- … for Some Value of “Magic” - Guido Uses My Birthday to Talk About Python’s Future
- Python Secret Weblog - Python 3 worries: feedback
- Oakwinter.com :: Code - On Python 3000 whinging
- Python Secret Weblog - the purpose to my “whinging” about the transition to Python 3
- … for Some Value of “Magic” - The Python Community (not really Py3K related, but relevant) [Update: 6/23]
- Regebro on Python - Python 3000 and compatibility [Updated: 6/23]
- Coder Who Says Py - Python-Dev does care about the 2.x -> 3.0 transition [Update: 6/23]
- jessenoller.com - The more you know - the discussion around Python 3000 (because recursion is fun) [Update: 6/23]
- Making Games, Making Webs. - php 5.x is four years old. php 4 is still used. Pygame with py3k? [Update: 6/24]
[Update: 6/24]
Jesse Noller has created a new resource page for Python 3000 to accompany his Python 3000 custom search. Here are the links:
The first thing I would like to say is Happy Birthday Steve!!! [Update: Happy Birth day Ned!!!]
Words are very important. They are the primary means of human communication and at the root of mans greatest achievements and worst atrocities. Words are not cheap, they are priceless. Before PyCon 2007 there was much discussion on the blogs on Py3K and the future of python, mostly based on speculation, out of date information, and fear. I am not linking those posts (or mine) as I do not believe they add anything to the current discussion. Guido responded with his keynote address which cleared the air on many of the issues. Discussions ensued and community feedback was a strong factor in the sprints which followed, resulting in the new IO system. All as Steve Holden predicted. And time passed….
This brings us up to date. Guido’s post starts up the dialog again, which is a very good thing. We need to have these discussions so we can properly discover all the potential problems, and if not have solutions ready, at least be prepared. A certain white house staff member got some heat for a statement about ‘unknown unknowns’, but it was one of the more intelligent (if unintelligible) things he ever said. It is not the known unknowns (will the major python projects make the switch and when, etc), it is the unknown unknowns which have the potential to fracture the python community. Guido’s post shines a spotlight on the Py3K effort, the problems the dev team has identified, and the solutions they have come up with. A community response has started and needs to continue. A spotlight needs to be shown on the issues which have yet to be found, and only the community as a whole can do that. We can also find the solutions together.
There have been comments segmenting the ‘community’ into the ‘python core developers’ and well, everyone else. I see this as a little odd, as every one of the core developers are also part of the community working on their own python based packages which are not part of the CPython core. The ‘core developers’ are also facing all the same upgrade issues the rest of the ‘python community’ is. I believe that is one of the many reasons why they are trying to make it as easy as possible to upgrade. With that said, there is defiantly a feeling of separation between what happens on the various python dev lists and the blogosphere (or whatever). The python ecosystem is quite large and diverse and fostering communication between all the far flung members is difficult at best, processing feedback near impossible. Brett Cannon (coder who says py above) has been very vocal about making the python dev efforts more transparent, and the switch to the new roundup issue tracker will be a significant step forward (if only sourceforge would fix their bugs!). There was also discussion about opening up the PEP approval or at least the review process to a system which is more accessible to the general user than the mailing list archive.
The review of the GPLv3 effort at the recent MassTLC event got me thinking about Py3K and the efforts therein. My notes from that event are riddled with information about the different groups formed at each level of the process, the public chat logs (all meetings were held on irc), the document itself with full change annotations. The GPL has a much larger community with many more factions with interesting agendas. What can we learn from their efforts? After all, chances are, we would not be having this discussion if not for those ‘cheap words’.
