Please stop saying your software supports Python if it's only V2

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5278441

by hoodoof • 13 years ago

14 15 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

PG - any chance you can post this to the front page?

If you have any sort of database or other product that includes Python drivers, please stop saying your product supports Python if you only support Python 2.

Python is now Python 3. I'm tired of software that says it supports Python, only to find out it supports the old, outdated version of Python. Amazingly this is happening even for new software like RethinkDB.

If you don't support Python 3, then it's no longer okay to say "Python is supported". Your software does NOT support Python.

You could instead say something like "We support legacy versions of Python but we do not support current versions of Python".

senic• 13 years ago

Python 2 is still widely used, that's why saying it supports "Python" seems legit to me.

Although I have to admit I'm annoyed by this versioning problem myself. I find myself wasting a lot of time sorting out versioning issues of packages/frameworks I'd like to use.

emn13• 13 years ago

Is it legit to claim to support windows if you only support XP? It's disingenuous. At the least mention the version number in the claim if it's that important.

sp3322• 13 years ago

At least anyone who has Python 3 installed is likely to also have Python 2.

jrussbowman• 13 years ago

I think when windows xp was the predominate install. yes

bunderbunder• 13 years ago

I think you'd get a more apt analogy if you were to back up a few years, to the late 1990s: At that time, was it legitimate to claim you support Windows if you only support Win9x and not WinNT?

Don't get confused by version numbers. Yes, Python 3's got a bigger major number, but for now that is nothing more than a reflection of Python's ambitions. The reality is that Python's currently in a period of transition, and during the course of that transition the Python name will have to be shared by two separate-but-related software products.

Udo• 13 years ago

> PG - any chance you can post this to the front page?

Are you kidding me? You want the fast lane to the front page because you're upset that people's projects only have Python 2 support when you expect Python 3? Is this some kind of joke?

Could you at least tell us what specifically set you off there?

richo2• 13 years ago

I'm guessing RethinkDB but it's hard to say..

tobiasu• 13 years ago

http://python.org/download/

"The current production versions are Python 2.7.3 and Python 3.3.0."

"Python" is widely considered to be python2, not python3 (yet). Deal with it.

sp3322• 13 years ago

In fact /usr/bin/python is recommended to point to Python 2 while Python 3 is /usr/bin/python3.

gushie• 13 years ago

This is a joke, yes?

alexpopescu• 13 years ago

Not long ago I've tried to find out what are the most popular versions of Python available.

I've started by asking people heavily involved in the Python world. Statistically irrelevant, but the majority of answers I've got back were:

1. production systems: 2.7.x

2. old maintenance mode: 2.6

3. some 3.x

I've also tried asking the PSF, hoping that they might have more data. They pointed out to the download page:

> "The current production versions are Python 2.7.3 and Python 3.3.0"

A statistically relevant survey would need to take in consideration:

1. what major Linux distributions include as the default Python version

2. what versions hosting providers support by default

3. the percentage of Python libraries that work with Python 2.7 and Python 3.3

A lot of effort would be needed to pull together all these details, but I think the Python community would benefit from having this data around (even if some might find this detrimental to the advance of Python)

coffeemug2• 13 years ago

slava @ rethinkdb here. We don't support Python 3 out of the box because rethink uses protocol buffers for communication between client drivers and the server, and the protobuf library hasn't been ported yet to Python 3. As soon as it does, we'll support it officially.

If you'd like to fund the porting effort of the protobuf library to Python 3, shoot me an email to slava@rethinkdb.com and we'll see if we can arrange something. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait :)

richo2• 13 years ago

Unrelated, but I'm using protobuf in a project I'd like to port to python3.

I'll have a poke at the problem, where's the best place to ping you if I've got an rc for python3 protobuf?

coffeemug2• 13 years ago

slava@rethinkdb.com would be great!

pyalot2• 13 years ago

Python 2 and Python 3 are not the same languages. They are neither backwards nor forwards compatible. Both versions are the current version of "A python flavored language" with one (2) being used everywhere, and the other (3) being somewhat of an attempt to capture on the success of the first, with varying degrees of success.

Please stop saying your software supports Python if it's only V2

Related Stories