The latest from chromatic (emphasis mine):
"If you think people don’t like Perl because the Perl 6 project started almost ten years ago, you haven’t been paying attention.
(Think Python has better marketing? Guido announced Python 3000 before Larry announced Perl 6, and it still took the better part of eight years for the Python developers to produce Python 3, and people are still upset that Python 3 is a wholesale replacement for Python 2, and there’s still a debate over when – and in some cases, if – major projects using Python will embrace Python 3 and abandon Python 2. Think about that.)"
Okay, I didn’t see any regret for shafting Perl 5 for the last 10 years, but great! I’m so happy that the opposition made the same stupid mistake that we did. </sarcasm>
I don’t think that is a true case with Python 3. Python 3 was an actual pie-in-the-sky joke from Guido and then he actually said “lets do it”. They laid out a 5 year plan for Python 3 adoption and they are about half way through it. The bigger projects are just now starting to lay down their Python 3 plans.
Those who think Python 3 is a “wholesale replacement” are right in a sense but not in the Perl 5 -> Perl 6 sense. Python 3 only changes a “few” things and is more of an incremental improvement (and yes I think it is that).
I don’t think the two camps are the same at all, except that people don’t like to wait.
Hi Robert,
As a Python outsider, it still looks as though a choice between incompatible version 2 and 3 is not straightforward. What if I want to use Django for example?
Having said that, they have made an infinitely better job of the transition so far.
Read Guido’s posts to the Python development mailing list from 2000 sometime. They’re all part of the public record.