The looming Python 3(000) monster

[Les Mikesell]

Jesse Keating wrote:
>> On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 12:35 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
>>
>> I just don't get why any sane person, especially anyone familiar with 
>> computer languages, would ever want to give something that is not the 
>> same the same name.  Does anyone know how the developer(s) manage this 
>> themselves?  I have to think they are keeping multiple concurrent 
>> versions installed (and that that is the only reasonable approach).
> 
> I'm pretty certain that if you look at any language, they've all faced
> similar scenarios, major version upgrades that may in fact not be
> forward no backward compatible.  People have dealt with it and moved on.
> No language is perfect.

But where the change was anything more than a bugfix they dealt with it 
by permitting the old/new languages to run in parallel until everyone 
had time to make the necessary changes.  And in the old days of static 
compiled binaries and versioned libraries it didn't make such a big 
difference since you could keep running your old versions even if the 
current compiler couldn't build them.   That doesn't work with 
interpreted languages and massive plugin usage - everything has to be 
versioned together or kept in separate namespaces.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com