Can I Use Python 3?

https://caniusepython3.com/

by daGrevis • 12 years ago

94 63 12 years ago

caniusepython3.com

IgorPartola3• 12 years ago

Sucks that there is no way to paste a requirements.txt file. Lots of projects I work on are in private GitHub repos.

Edit: Ah, here we go: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/caniusepython3. This is the command-line version.

jonesetc• 12 years ago

aside: I was secretly hoping it only supported python2.

Thanks for that though. It will be much more useful with requirements files.

jonalmeida• 12 years ago

Excuse the ignorance, but wouldn't requirement checking be equivalent to see if a 'python3-<package_name>' is available in your package manager?

You can then download that, and use something like 2to3 to convert it.

mapleoin• 12 years ago

No, because the packages provided by your distribution are a subset of all the python3 packages available.

viraptor• 12 years ago

You can then download that, and use something like 2to3 to convert it.

Only in some cases. Pretty much anything that handles binary formats on the wire will need some tweaking.

pekk3• 12 years ago

No, distributions are way behind

2to3 is bad and the code involved has to be tested using it anyway.

The normal way to install Python packages is not by manually downloading them

hdevalence• 12 years ago

Depends on your distro, I guess.

Arch has python -> python3, so it's quite rare that you'd have a python2-foobar package but not a python-foobar package, unless there was no python3 version.

joyinsky• 12 years ago

The answer is no.

alexmorse• 12 years ago

Doesn't seem to work. I get a created_at time, but no started_at in the resulting json blob for job status.

melling3• 12 years ago

It's kind of disappointing that developers aren't self-aware enough to understand that they are essentially screwing themselves by not moving quickly in dropping "legacy" support.

"Python 3 will be available in 2008 but we understand that you won't use it for at least 5 years."

There's an entire class of developers who won't upgrade until they absolutely have to. There's also a class of administrator that won't upgrade their current PC browser from IE6-IE8 until they absolutely have to. Developers are basically screwing themselves by not drawing a firm line.

IgorPartola3• 12 years ago

You know, when I am working on an existing project for a client that's allotted 15 hours a week to it, and I have to get actual features pushed out, I don't have time to check which of the 25+ dependencies I list are going to work in Python 3. Sure, maybe I can start a new project in Python 3, but there are enough existing projects to not be able to do this.

Also, even if I am starting an existing project, what if down the line I must use a library that's only available for Python 2? I am not going to rewrite something like that because it will cost my client money if I spend time on it.

The problem with Python 2 is that it's good enough. Python 3 is a huge improvement, yet until I can be reasonably sure that all libraries I am likely to use are available for both, Python 2 is the winner.

Having said that, any personal projects I have started recently have all used Python 3 and it's been great. I also try to make sure that any libraries I write work in both.

sentenza• 12 years ago

You are right that Python 2 is good enough, but I'd add a majestically large "yet", because that will change from one day to the other.

My primary machine runs Arch Linux, a distro that switched the /usr/bin/python link to python3 some months ago, thus generating a sort of "majority Python 3" environment. I myself, having been rather apathetic on the switchover before, have switched completely to Python 3 just because using Python 2.x has become a hassle.

Admittedly, I am in the fortunate position that all my active python projects could be moved over easily, once boost-python and matplotlib were solidly 3-ready. Other libaries are more problematic (looking at you, every Django-plugin out there).

My point is, Python 2 won't be good enough for long and for some of us it already isn't any more.

melling3• 12 years ago

Yes, I understand. I've worked in corporate America for a couple of decades. Anyway, I got downvoted for my comment so I'll leave it up to the community to figure out how to deprecate 2.x.

TylerE2• 12 years ago

Python 3 is a huge improvement

Citation needed. Even the devs aren't trying to sell it as much more than a clean up. Very little is actually qualitatively better, and there are some regressions also - for one, last time I looked it was still about 10% slower than Python 2 in most benchmarks.

muyuu• 12 years ago

It's not a huge improvement to me, that's why I don't use it.

rbanffy• 12 years ago

Python 3 is a huge improvement

It's an improvement, but it's not huge. It's a better language, but it's still the Python we all know and love without a couple warts.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 12 years ago

Who exactly am I screwing by sticking with python 2? It's certainly not me or my employers.

Maybe if van Rossum had produced a compelling reason to switch (like, for example, removing the GIL) I would have gone over by now.

melling3• 12 years ago

The maintainers of Python (and libraries) are screwing themselves. You missed the point. Now they have to support two versions.

Grue32• 12 years ago

There is no such thing as a legacy programming language. Python 2 and Python 3 are two different, incompatible programming languages. The existence of Python 3 doesn't make Python 2 code legacy code.

BuckRogers2• 12 years ago

Legacy doesn't mean unused, the definition of a legacy programming language is when no one is choosing it for new projects. Python2 is going to be moving closer to this COBOL-status as people start coding for Python3 and Py2 support becomes more and more of an afterthought until they just stop bothering.

ishbits• 12 years ago

Its not always the developer.

For instance, I do some utility class software that needs to just work on RedHat/CentOS 6. Having to build Python 3 from source, or use SCL and mess with paths, and virtualenvs is simply not an option for my target user.

angersock• 12 years ago

I'm willing to be the vast majority of Python code in existence right now is academic in nature.

Most academics--from an engineering standpoint, mind!--write really shitty and garbage code, under deadline to submit yet another paper for the mill.

There is no surprise that they would be unable/unwilling to appreciate the long-term damage they inflict on themselves when using what should be deprecated features.

Meanwhile, Rubyists and Node rockstars are laughing all the way to the bank, and the Erlang bros are already there.

EDIT:

Okay, fine, downvote, but at least mention which part of that statement you disagree with.

pge• 12 years ago

While I won't speculate as to why people downvoted (and I didnt downvote), I personally would disagree with your first assertion. Python is used in production all over the place, particularly for web-facing applications (obviously all Django sites but also large sites like Google) but also applications like Dropbox.

eronhp• 12 years ago

"Okay, fine, downvote, but at least mention which part of that statement you disagree with." rockstars... bros...

robomartin• 12 years ago

It's kind of disappointing that developers aren't self-aware enough to understand that they are essentially screwing themselves by not moving quickly in dropping "legacy" support.

I think the part that might be missing from your line of reasoning is context: For professionals and entrepreneurs programming isn't a hobby, it's a business.

The decision to stay with 2.x isn't about not being self-aware. It's about being serious about your business. Business has nothing to do with self-awareness. It would be irresponsible to send your organization down a path that could result in a huge setback.

If you are self-funded this could absolutely kill you. If you are in a competitive environment where time to market is crucial (who isn't) this could kill you. If you have investors who expect you to make responsible decisions, they could kill you.

How are you going to explain the decision to go to 3.x when the fertilizer hits the ventilator and you realize there are three choices in front of you:

    1- Redo your entire codebase to migrate down to 2.x.
    2- Launch a new project to rewrite the 2.x libraries you need.
       This could take one week or one year.
    3- Shut it down because you don't have enough cash to deal 
       with having made the wrong decision.

And, here's the kicker: You won't know until you hit that wall. Sure, you can do an initial dependencies survey. And hope you went deep enough. By definition, you will have no way to check dependencies you don't know about at the start of the project.

The bottom line is that in the context of a real business --not a hobby-- sticking with 2.x is probably the only responsible choice for a huge number of organizations. I really think the Python leaders made a mistake in not coming up with a smooth on-ramp onto the various ideas in 3.x. I do understand that some things need to be broken sometimes. In the real world you can only break so much of a codebase before people avoid it like the plague.

Here's the other reality: The customer doesn't give a damn whether you are using 2.x, 3.x, Python, Lisp, PHP or assembler. They buy your product or use your service because of the value they derive from it. For the vast majority of businesses and customers this has nothing whatsoever to do with the technology choices you make behind the scenes. If this fact isn't obvious, study the history of a number of prominent startups and you'll find support for this idea.

It's easy to fall back on engineering think and forget reality. I do it all the time. Over the years I've become better at avoiding thinking like that. Like wanting to build a product without doing market research and, a year later, finding out the hard way nobody wants it.

I'm not criticizing you here. I am simply pointing out something we all do from time to time.

keketiko• 12 years ago

Can I walk around with an artificial limp?

Is it sensible?

tibbon• 12 years ago

Would love to see some example URLs. I'm a Rubyist and don't have any Python URLs to post in there.

Too• 12 years ago

Is there any static table where you can see the status of all packages this tool knows about in one glance? It would be interesting to see the overall status of how many packages that are available instead of asking for each one.

vially• 12 years ago

This is a list containing some of the more popular python libraries: http://python3wos.appspot.com/

neokya• 12 years ago

This is actually what you want http://py3readiness.org - site that uses `caniusepython3` and shows support graph for popular packages.

bagels• 12 years ago

Well, the tool timed out, so I looked up my dependencies on google:

flask: yes, mysqldb: no, pycassa: no

I guess I can't use python 3 yet still.

From what I have read, a lot of people have had trouble installing pymysql, the proposed python 3 mysql library.

glimcat• 12 years ago

Flask: you can, but you really shouldn't, at least not for anything you plan to deploy.

http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/python3/#python3-support

http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2014/1/5/unicode-in-2-and-3/

Which kind of sums up the whole Python 3 situation.

jessaustin• 12 years ago

Umm, FUD much? It's a real stretch from Ronacher's (entirely reasonable, from what I can see) complaints to "not for anything you plan to deploy."

rodelrod• 12 years ago

We've been working with the Oracle connector for MySQL [1] without any problems.

[1] https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/python/

gsnedders• 12 years ago

There's also oursql, which isn't API compatible with MySQL-db, but is generally better (and works fine, in my experience).

daGrevis• 12 years ago

Service seems to be down-ish.

You can check it using CLI! http://vpaste.net/UuOFT Source code is available here! https://github.com/jezdez/caniusepython3.com

Disclaimer: I'm NOT the author.

chhantyal• 12 years ago

Shameless plug: http://py3readiness.org/ If you just want to get overview of which popular packages support Python 3.

ehPReth• 12 years ago

Is referer still worth it to prevent CSRF? They seem to be using a CSRF token in their <form> and that should be all that's needed from what I understand..

  Forbidden (403)
  
  CSRF verification failed. Request aborted.
  
  You are seeing this message because this HTTPS site requires a 'Referer header' to be sent by your Web browser, but none was sent. This header is required for security reasons, to ensure that your browser is not being hijacked by third parties.
  
  If you have configured your browser to disable 'Referer' headers, please re-enable them, at least for this site, or for HTTPS connections, or for 'same-origin' requests.

wirrbel• 12 years ago

The fatal fact about python and python 3 is, that python 2.7 seems to be considered a convenient and stable plattform by its users. A dream come true for all the "prudent" folks out there who do not want anything to change.

The lesson learned will be, to implement changes more incrementally so people are gradually upgrading instead of having a high step.

pekk3• 12 years ago

By your advice, the bad unicode situation in Python 2 would never have been fixed.

jrochkind1• 12 years ago

I think it would be very valuable to try and do a big compare-and-contrast analysis of the Python 2->3 transition vs the ruby 1.8->1.9(->2) transition.

ruby 1.9 transition was actually a pretty big pain (I have no idea whether as big a pain as python2->3 or not, that'd be something to look at).

But the ruby ecosystem/community has successfully moved to 1.9, there is little left on 1.8.

On the other hand, sometimes it's _really_ frustrating how much work I need to spend upgrading my ruby stuff to use the latest and greatest. Ruby community is relatively uncaring about backwards compat (less than python? I am not sure. Is that uncaringness part of the tradeoff that got us to all move to ruby 1.9 somehow? I don't know, but that's what I'm wondering. Many interesting questions.)

nahname• 12 years ago

Lots of apps die in the wake of the new.

pornel• 12 years ago

PHP4->PHP5 was a big breaking change as well. It took several years for all projects nad hosting companies to upgrade and switch to v5 by default.

But there was a strong push from developers. I don't see that happening when Python developers' attitude is "Meh, Python 2 is all right, I don't need to upgrade anything ever".

Macha2• 12 years ago

Python 2 is nowhere near as lacking as PHP4. Which is probably a big part. But even then it took a big campaign and large software like Wordpress declaring that they would go PHP5 only.

Vultaire• 12 years ago

Very cool. Would like to see proxy support on the xmlrpclib bits; http_proxy=... doesn't work at present and I don't see command line flags. (Not a hard fix, but I can't offer a patch right now.)

codexon• 12 years ago

I ported a python2 app with py2to3 a couple months ago and it wasn't completely painless.

The worst problem I ran into was that it didn't know which strings were supposed to be bytes or unicode. And the program would throw a runtime error when it tried to do something like use a byte regex on a unicode string.

Pacabel• 12 years ago

That's not a bad thing, though. That signifies ambiguity in your code. You're better off fixing problems like that than you are letting them go undetected or unfixed.

ciupicri• 12 years ago

It would be great if it wouldn't fail with:

   Forbidden (403)
   CSRF verification failed. Request aborted.

just because the referrer is missing.

Derbasti• 12 years ago

I very recently was looking for a way to do some scientific 3D visualizations in Python 3. Requirements: OpenGL 3+ (for shaders) and some basic windowing and mouse event handling.

I looked at

- PyOpenGL, no windowing.

- PyGlet, Python 2.7.

- PyQt, only OpenGL 2.

- PySide, outdated Qt version and more or less unmaintained.

- wxPython, Python 2.7.

- PyGame, Python 2.7.

So, no dice. This is really terrible. Also, the hoops I had to jump through to get some of these installed was just ridiculous.

The solution I ended up with? Tornado, websockets and WebGL. Because that is the easiest way I could find to write 3D visualizations for scientific Python. Not Python.

JoachimS2• 12 years ago

How very recently was this? The pyglet dev version from 2012 at least claims to be for Python3.

JoachimS2• 12 years ago

PyGame also claims Python3 support for several releases back. I agree on the installation part though. Pyglet is really the one I've found easiest to install and get started with.

Macha2• 12 years ago

Pyglet and Pygame both support Python 3.

Can I Use Python 3?

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