[Zope] VNU Net: Python 3000 not backwards compatible, warns creator

Anthony Baxter Anthony Baxter <anthony@interlink.com.au>
Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:53:25 +1000


>>> Daryl Tester wrote
> > Python 3000 will not be backwards compatible.
> People are making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be.
> I admire Guido for taking a stance and fixing the problems he
> perceives in his language;  I've had to support "backwards
> compatability" issues in a commercial interpretive language
> before, and "It Sucks(TM)".

One thing that is kinda amusing (to me, at least) - the fuss I'm seeing
about this is, in a way, a testament to just _how_ _good_ a job Guido's
done as Benevolent Dictator. I've been using python since v 0.9.mumble,
and there's been _very_ _very_ few times where I've had to go back and
change working code because of a python upgrade.

And that's not just the python scripts, I'm also talking about C
extensions. 

Thinking back to a previous place of work where we had perl software of
around 10-12K lines of code, it seemed like every bloody minor rev of
perl5 would break something in it.

P3K has been talked about for a long long time as the "chance to fix
stuff" (ok, it used to be known as Python 2.0, but...).  I, for one, 
am looking forward to it. (particularly if the types/classes split 
goes away).

Anthony