Python 3.3.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "After just over a month of release candidates, the final version of Python 3.3 launched today. This version includes new syntax, including the yield from expression for generator delegation; new library modules, including fault handler (for debugging crashes), ipaddress, and lzma (for data compression using the XZ/LZMA algorithm); a reworked OS and I/O exception hierarchy; the venv module for programmatic access to Python virtual environments; and a host of API changes. The full list of features and the change log are both available."

Comments

Re:Python 3 and its use

[melonman]

"It's probably now at the point where new projects are better off starting with Python 3, to ease the pain of upgrading later, unless there's a library they really need. Starting with a mature (but depreciated) platform is not a great idea."

Unless you want to use Python on Google App Engine, where Python 2.7 is what you get. And given that Guido himself works for Google on this project, that's not exactly encouraging.

Or unless you want a Python app to work out of the box on, well, just about anything, but OSX is the example that bit me.

I remember discussing Python 3 on /. when it came out. The decision not to even try to ensure backwards compatibility struck me as disastrous. The response was "No, because Python will never have a cruft problem because we are not Perl coders", or something like that. Many years on, I still think it was disastrous. Python now has a bigger legacy code problem than Perl - seen much Perl 4 recently? - precisely because the upgrade path is such a pain.

Killing Python 2 is going to be like killing IE6 and Windows XP - a noble goal that turns out to take decades. And it's a totally self-inflicted wound by the Python community.