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Re: Python 2 or 3

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In article <O3hCq.1112$Ci1.79@uutiset.elisa.fi>,
 Antti J Ylikoski <antti.ylikoski@tkk.fi> wrote:

> I have in my hands the O'Reilly book by Mark Lutz, Programming 
> Python, in two versions: the 2nd Edition, which covers Python 2, and 
> the 4th edition, which covers Python 3.

The engineer in me really has to wonder what the 3rd edition might have 
covered :-)

> I would not want to invest such an amount of work and time to an 
> obsolete language (i. e. Python 2).

I think the best that can be said for Python 2 is, "It's not dead yet!".  
The vast majority of production Python code written today is for 2.x, 
for x in {5, 6, 7}.  The biggest thing that's holding back adoption of 3 
is that most of the major packages don't support 3 yet (but I saw an 
announcement just this morning that django has been ported to 3).

I predict that 2012 will be the year of Python-3.  I expect we're at the 
point now that all major packages will either get ported to 3 in the 
next year or two, or become abandonware.  Also, people building new 
packages will come out with versions for both 2 and 3 if they want their 
stuff to get widely adopted.

> What is the opinion of the wizards here, shall I learm Python 2 or
> Python 3?  I'm posting this here because I feel that this point is
> interesting to other students of Python.

The difficult thing here is that you are living on the cusp.  If you 
came back and asked that question in a couple of years, I strongly 
suspect the answer would be, "Don't bother with 2; 3 is what everybody 
uses today".  But, we're not there quite yet.  Learn 2.

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Thread

Python 2 or 3 Antti J Ylikoski <antti.ylikoski@tkk.fi> - 2011-12-03 05:54 +0200
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Gnarlodious <gnarlodious@gmail.com> - 2011-12-02 20:10 -0800
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-12-02 22:20 -0600
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2011-12-02 23:27 -0500
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> - 2011-12-02 20:42 -0800
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-12-03 01:23 -0500
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-12-03 00:37 -0600
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-12-03 00:41 -0600
  Re: Python 2 or 3 jmfauth <wxjmfauth@gmail.com> - 2011-12-03 00:59 -0800
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-12-03 10:04 +0000
    Re: Python 2 or 3 Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-12-03 21:44 +1100
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Arnaud Delobelle <arnodel@gmail.com> - 2011-12-03 12:03 +0000
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Gelonida N <gelonida@gmail.com> - 2011-12-03 21:59 +0100
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-12-04 13:52 +1100
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-12-03 21:52 -0500
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-12-04 14:02 +1100
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Zaphod <zaphod@beeblebrox.net> - 2011-12-04 20:18 +0000
  Re: Python 2 or 3 Tobiah <tobiah@teranews.com> - 2011-12-06 09:33 -0800
    Re: Python 2 or 3 Enrico 'Henryx' Bianchi <henryx_b@yahoo.it> - 2011-12-10 00:16 +0100
      Re: Python 2 or 3 Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-12-10 00:19 +0000
        Re: Python 2 or 3 Enrico 'Henryx' Bianchi <henryx_b@yahoo.it> - 2011-12-10 12:49 +0100

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