Python: language moratorium is lifted

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.devel/121459

by prog • 15 years ago

113 29 15 years ago

article.gmane.org

dalke3• 15 years ago

Quoting from PEP 303:

This PEP proposes a temporary moratorium (suspension) of all changes to the Python language syntax, semantics, and built-ins for a period of at least two years from the release of Python 3.1. In particular, the moratorium would include Python 3.2 (to be released 18-24 months after 3.1) but allow Python 3.3 (assuming it is not released prematurely) to once again include language changes.

Python 3.2 is newly released and 3.3 development has started.

pero5• 15 years ago

So, essentially, the non-"python-is-my-second-language" crowd should wait not just for v3-as-is to gain acceptance, but until 3.3 before they start migrating, or what?

From a high-level outsider perspective, the shift from 2.x to "current" looks like amateur hour.

Locke16892• 15 years ago

No, the point of the moratorium was mostly to allow interpreter/compiler implementors to catch up. As of 3.3 the team is just going to start adding minor syntax augmentations to the language gradually, as they used to do. Anyone who wants to keep current with Python should just learn the syntax additions as they come out. The base syntax of Python 3 will not be changing any time soon.

From a high-level outsider perspective, the shift from 2.x to "current" looks like amateur hour.

I don't even know what this sentence means.

ableal• 15 years ago

> the shift from 2.x to "current" looks like amateur hour

"Amateur hour" would be to expect the shift to occur overnight, with magic powers conferred by unicorns and butterflies. If you look at the developers posts (instead of random uninformed excitable blogs) you'll see that it was realistically expected to take a few years.

See, for instance, core developer J. Noller's comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130854

wisty• 15 years ago

> From a high-level outsider perspective, the shift from 2.x to "current" looks like amateur hour.

You are hearing a lot of noise now, because 3.X has finally become viable enough to be interesting to the wider python community, I hope. That's why people keep hyping it.

3.0 was not ready, and only a few dedicated pythoneers (like Mark Pilgrim) pushed it.

It was very professional of the python community to keep 3.X in it's mother's basement until it was well-enough dressed to be seen in public.

gjm11• 15 years ago

In case anyone's wondering about the two PEPs GvR mentions:

PEP 380 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0380/) would provide a convenient way for one generator function to yield all the values of another as part of its work. At the moment you have to say something like

  for x in foo:
    yield x

which isn't all that bad in itself but breaks down when your caller starts sending values back to you, coroutine-style. (Because they go to foo and you never get to see them.)

PEP 3152 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3152/) uses the generator mechanism (as enhanced by PEP 380) which already provides something rather like coroutines, and adds some syntactic sugar to let you write coroutines that look like coroutines.

anonymoushn2• 15 years ago

This is somewhat disappointing. Python's lack of full-fledged coroutines is most of what keeps me using Lua.

dalke3• 15 years ago

And you don't want to use Stackless Python because ... ?

yummyfajitas• 15 years ago

I was going to suggest that Stackless is dead, given that I haven't heard any news about it.

But that would have been foolish of me: http://zope.stackless.com/Members/rmtew/News%20Archive/3.1.3

sigzero• 15 years ago

So keep using Lua? Langauges choices are all about that...choice.

Locke16892• 15 years ago

Meh, I could nitpick at the language all day but I still use it. Call/cc probably isn't happening anytime soon.

Jach• 15 years ago

Did anyone else think "Wow, 2 years already"? (I remember people claiming the moratorium was a signal of Python's demise...)

I'm happy about PEP 380, it seems like they might as well do PEP 3152 as well since they're highly related...

Python: language moratorium is lifted

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