Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Python 3.0 To Be Backwards Incompatible

Posted by kdawson on from the it's-broke-jim dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "Organizations using Python will be affected in a major way by changes in store for the language over the course of the next twelve months, Linux.conf.au attendees were told this morning. The Python development community is working towards a new, backwards-incompatible version of the language, version 3.0, which is slated for release in early 2009. Anthony Baxter, the release manager for Python and a senior software engineer at Google Australia, said "We are going to break pretty much all the code. Pretty much every program will need changes." Baxter also added another tidbit for attendees, saying that Python accounts for around 15 percent of Google's code base."

2 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's a race by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 1, Redundant

    15% of the google codebase consitutes a "small user base"?

    --
    It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
  2. Re:It's a race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Perl was once a really big language use for almost every app out there. Then by the time from the move to perl 6 the apps went away and more Python Apps starting appearing.
    Please stop rewriting history.

    • Perl was never "use (sic) for almost every app out there". It has always been used within certain niches (system administration, database access, CGI, and command-line glue). It has hardly ever been used for other things like desktop GUIs etc.
    • There has not been any such thing as a "move to perl 6". Perl6 is indeed in development, and has been for a long time... but so is Perl5, which had a major new release, with many added features, just a month ago!
    • The "apps" have not "gone away". I don't know if it's escaped your notice, but the incredibly popular website you're using right now has not been rewritten in Python yet.
    But I guess it's unreasonable to expect little things like truth and reality to have any play on Slashdot, where everyone's always twisting the facts to try and justify racing off after the next shiny. (Aren't you a little behind the curve hyping Python? That was last year's big thing, all the cool kids are jerking off over Ruby now, while the grown-ups keep on doing serious work with Perl.)