[Python-Dev] email package status in 3.X (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Sun Jun 20 11:14:02 CEST 2010

Steven D'Aprano writes:

Frankly, I believe that pushing the meme that "Python 3 is different" is a strategic mistake.

I agree that it's strategically undesirable. Unfortunately, the genuine backward incompatibility, as well as the huge mind-share already garnered by what I consider wrong-headed advice from certain quarters have made pushing the meme that "Python 3 is very nearly the same" untenable. It's hard to beat something like "it's not yet time to use Python 3" with a nuanced explanation.

had my experience would have been different. It's bad enough to have to tell people "Python 3 is currently lacking some critical libraries, particularly third-party libraries" without also telling them (wrongly IMO) "oh, and it's a new language too".

That's why I propose the C to C++ analogy. True, C++ does introduce a lot of new features, but most programmers migrating from C to C++ don't learn to use them properly for years, if ever, I'm told.

Note also that I don't propose this as PSF advertising. I proposed it as a response to Mark's question, "what should I tell my readers?"

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