Python 2.6 to Smooth the Way for 3.0, Coming Next Month

darthcamaro writes "Some programming languages just move on to major version numbers, leaving older legacy versions (and users) behind, but that's not the plan for Python. Python 2.6 has the key goal of trying to ensure compatibility between Python 2.x and Python 3.0, which is due out in a month's time. From the article: 'Once you have your code running on 2.6, you can start getting ready for 3.0 in a number of ways,' Guido Van Rossum said. 'In particular, you can turn on "Py3k warnings," which will warn you about obsolete usage patterns for which alternatives already exist in 2.6. You can then change your code to use the modern alternative, and this will make you more ready for 3.0.'"

Comments

What's new

[ChienAndalu]

Here are the changes.
I really have to check out the multiprocessing package. Too bad that I have to wait for the print function and the new division handling.

Re:Not sure about this one

[tazzzzz]

...which is why some heavy python users, myself included, aren't going to use 2.6 or 3.0. I have huge amounts of python in operation, and the very last thing I'm going to do is break any of it with an incompatible language that happens to slightly resemble python (no matter who wrote it, and no matter what they call it, it isn't python if it can't run mundane python code.)

"slightly resemble python"? Python 3.0 code looks just like the Python that's been around for years. Maybe there's some handy new syntax (with), but it's still Python.

This is not about fundamentally changing Python. This is about cleaning up warts, some of which have been around since Python 1.x.

If you're going to modify a language, you *must* do it in a compatible manner, otherwise what you're doing is making a new language that will require an entirely new community. Names notwithstanding, and resemblance beyond incompatibilities notwithstanding.

From what I've seen, the Python devs have put together about the best possible migration path while still actually making the changes that need to be made.

Here's the picture, in case it's not clear: Python 2.6 is just as backwards compatible as the other 2.x releases. Which is to say that porting from 2.5 to 2.6 is pretty trivial. I'd expect any actively used and maintained library to be 2.6 compatible within weeks (and a great many probably didn't break at all).

2.6 lets you use many of 3.0's features that don't break compatibility (and there are many). It also has a warnings mode to help you spot 3.0 incompatible code. And it lets you selectively turn on 3.0 features within a module.

Want to start using the new print function?

from __future__ import print_fiunction

Voila! The print keyword goes away and you have the new print function. Certainly bits of new Python 3.0 syntax work now as well:

try:
        1/0
except ZeroDivisionError as e:
        pass

The "as e" bit is new.

Finally, there's actually a "2to3" tool that makes many of the changes in an automated fashion.

The single biggest change from a compatibility standpoint is that "foo" is a unicode object in 3.0 and a string (set of bytes) in 2.x. You can even prepare for that switch:

from __future__ import unicode_literals

foo = "foo" # this will be unicode
bar = b"bar" # this is a set of bytes
unibar = bar.decode("utf-8") # get a unicode from the bytes

They have put *a lot* of thought into how to make this transition. People will gradually shift to 2.6, just as they did with 2.5. And, over time, they will change to using the new features. They'll probably upgrade to 2.7 (yes, there will be one), and use the new features even more. And eventually their code will just be 3.0 code and the switch will be a no brainer.