Why won't you switch to Python 3.x?

Question

I ask this for deployable reasons. As in, if I write a solution in python, I feel bound to write to 2.x due to the lack of adoption of python 3. This is a major daily concern of mine, and I want to figure out what's going on.

For many of the python-based questions here, people are giving solutions that simply do not work in python 3.x.

So, I ask the question: What has prevented you from switching to python 3.x in your personal or work environment? The conversion script exists, and yet programmers (who are usually the earliest adopters of everything) seem to refuse to upgrade.

Why?

Answer 1

1. Compiled 3rd party modules haven't updated.
2. Different syntax
3. Slower integers.
4. The #python IRC channel on freenode has in its title that its too early to switch.

Answer 2

For many of the python-based questions here, people are giving solutions that simply do not work in python 3.x.

I think you answered your own question here. The lack of backwards compatibility makes 3.0 a much harder sell than a seamless upgrade because you have to adjust your thinking and discard some programming techniques to use the new version.

Call me back when they have an upgrade script for my brain.

Answer 3

Django has not moved over to 3.0. That is all I need to know.

Related Questions

• Will Python 3.0’s backwards-incompatibility affect adoption?
• Is Python 3 a good starting point when you want to learn Python?
• If I’m going to learn Python, should I learn 2.x or just jump into 3.0?
• Who’s Using Python 3.0?
• Python Version for a Newbie
• Is it worth learning Python 2.6 with 3.0 coming?

Most of the answers in these questions echo the same sentiments. Aside from Django, too many frameworks/libraries - NumPy, SciPy, WxPython, PyGame, Django, etc - have still not adopted it. I'm sure as hell not making the move until they do.

Answer 4

Because major libraries that my codebase depends upon have not released a 3.x version. (wxPython, matplotlib, numpy, etc.)

So the responsibility goes upstream from my point of view.

If all my dependencies were 3.x compatible, I'd probably have switched by now.

Answer 5

3rd party tools and libraries. I'm having trouble making some things work under 2.6 (not a LOT of trouble, mind you, but some.)

As I see it, the ecosystem is one of Python's biggest strengths, and going to 3.0 at this point chucks a lot of that out the window. (In a year, I'm sure the story will be totally different.)

(Obviously, there's a chicken and egg problem here, but fortunately it's not my problem to solve, so I'll stay with 2.6 for a while.)

Answer 6

Because the default installation of 2.5 on Mac OSX Leopard works just fine. I have no need to upgrade and I see no advantage to upgrading except an end to the woes of unicode.

Answer 7

If you are interested to move to Py3k one interesting way would be to write code in Py3k and use a 3to2 script which is being written now as a part of Google Summer of code project, on the lines of 2to3 script.

Answer 8

The operating system I use the most, Debian, does not have a Python 3 package, not even in the "unstable" (brand new) branch. Unless I compile it myself (which is quite 20th century), it means no Python3 to me.

I bet it is the same issue with many operating systems.

Answer 9

Unfortunately, for the same reason as most others have said - 3rd party libraries still not having been made 3.0 compatible. For this reason, as well as that some GNU/Linux distributions (Ubuntu in my case) still comes with Python 2.6, I can't completely throw 2.x out the window yet.

However, the change to 3.0 is not a major one IMO. Except for "print" being a function and the new string formatting system, it's really more or less the same as before.

In fact, I find that most of my old scripts (those that do not depend on 3.0 incompatible 3rd party libraries) will work flawlessly in 3.0 after I update all the prints and string formatting. In some cases I've also had to change some module names (specifically stuff from the "email" module), but other than that nothing major.

Also, all the scripts I have updated for 3.x compatibility so far still seem to work flawlessly in 2.6 (but not older 2.x of course, as they lack the new 3.x syntax).

Answer 10

Because of the lack of backward compatibility, switching is hard, especially if there is C code involved. And although I understand the unicode/string thing may be very useful to some people, I certainly don't care about it myself.

Basically, Py3k did not solve many problem that I care about (distribution issues, versioning of modules, simplified import model).