Python 3.0 Released

licorna writes "The 3.0 version of Python (also known as Python3k and Python3000) just got released few hours ago. It's the first ever intentionally backwards-incompatible Python release."

Comments

Libraries

[explodymatt]

Python 3 being out is great, they've fixed a few things that allow bad programming, but does anyone know how long it will take for the libs to start getting ported? Especially numpy and scipy

Re:Libraries

[gzipped_tar]

IIRC numpy and scipy have dependencies on other libraries that are not 2.6-clean. They also have a lot of issue themselves. Currently it's not a priority for them to migrate.

Can't remember when did I read about that... and I'm too lazy to dig it out from their Trac :-P

Re:Libraries

[blincoln]

I can't help but think it was designed by someone who was pissed off that people didn't format their code the way he formatted his code. Since his way was obviously the "right" way, why not write a language that forces you to do it that way? Problem solved!

This is actually the main reason I haven't worked with Python beyond tweaking a few existing scripts. The funny thing is that (unless I'm misremembering the syntax) I already code using that style in other languages. But the idea of forcing that style on everyone annoys me enough to put me off of the language as a whole.

I was really hoping that 3.0 would remove that petty stupidity. Doing so would even retain backwards compatibility with prior versions!

Unfair headline there, Bubba

[Ancient_Hacker]

Yes, Python 3.0 is a break.

But in the past and forseeable future, Python has been exceedingly helpful, much more than most languages, during upgrades.

Usually one has several months to try out new features-- they're in the current version but turned off until you ask for them with "future_builtins".

Plus there's often a backwards feature in the next version to revert back to old behavior.

Not to mention a -3 option to point out the lines in your old program that will need changing for version 3.

But sometimes the changes are so big they can't be encompassed by a compiler switch. Such it is with 3.0.

 

Yay, Unicode!

[shutdown -p now]

Reworked Unicode support is a big deal. It was there before, of course (unlike Ruby - meh), but all those Unicode strings vs 8-bit strings, and the associated comparison issues, complicated things overmuch. Not to mention the ugly u"" syntax for Unicode string literals which was too eerily like C++ in that respect. Good to see it move to doing things the Right Way by clearly separating strings and byte arrays, and standardizing on Unicode for the former.

Now, if only we could convince Matz that his idea for Unicode support in Ruby 2.0 - where every string is a sequence of bytes with an associated encoding, so every string in the program can have its own encoding (and two arbitrary objects of type "string" may not even be comparable as a result) - is a recipe for disaster, and take hint from Python 3...

print function

[togofspookware]

First thing mentioned on the 'what's new' page (http://docs.python.org/dev/3.0/whatsnew/3.0.html)is that you'll have to change your code from

    print x, y, z,

to

    print(x, y, z, end="")

I can see the value of making things more consistent, but it seems to me whenever they update things in Python, it's usually to make programming in it a little bit harder.

Why not make print a function, but then change the language to not require parentheses for any function call? You'd still have to use them when calling a function with zero arguments, and in sub-expressions, but to not require parens for top-level function calls would, if nothing else, make playing around in interactive mode or with short scripts a lot more pleasant.

Granted, I come from a Ruby background, so I may not know what I'm talking about. My experience with Python is trying to write some scripts on my OLPC, where the craptacular rubber keyboard made typing parentheses all the more agonizing. I finally caved and installed Ruby so I could get some work done. Maybe people who prefer Python really like typing parens. And underscores.

Re:print function

[maxume]

I would say that it makes typing python a little bit harder, but I would also argue that it makes programming python easier, not harder (it eliminates print as a statement, but it also eliminates special syntax that existed only for redirecting print output, and makes it trivial to change the default behavior of print within a module (by defining a local print function)).