Re: [tlug] Python 2x3 [was: Um, so... systemd?]

[Christian Horn <chorn@example.com>]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 04:59:59PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> 
> I really can't recommend doing that any more.  There remain good
> reasons for sticking to 2.7 for consultants working with existing
> codebases, but most new code (and I mean >50% but increasing steadily)
> is now being written in Python 3, and most libraries have Python
> 3-compatible versions.  Many applications require Python >= 3.4.
> There are already even people out there saying "I'm not interested in
> working in anything less than Python 3.6,"[1] which is like two weeks
> old.  You're really screwing yourself and likely more than half your
> clients restricting yourself to 2.7-compatible code.
> 
> Bottom line: If you're going to write code for 2.7, just write it for
> 2.7, hold the line at bug fixes and security features (2.7 itself
> doesn't even get bug fixes any more), and write a separate version for
> 3.x going forward.

FWIW, Red Hat [1] released RHEL7 in 2014 with python 2.7, and rpm/yum
are using it.  Chances that this gets changed over the RHEL7 life-
time are probably not big.  It's also rather likely that we fix issues,
and that these are pushed to upstream python 2.7 as per our policy.
Newer python versions are available [2], but might not be available 
over the full lifetime of RHEL7.  Upstream might for example decide 
to close python 3.0 in 2 years, but RHEL7 support lasts for many more
years..

Chris

[1] ..where I work, full disclosure
[2] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en/red-hat-software-collections/