Multirelease effort: Moving to Python 3

[Jan Pokorný]

On 19/07/13 02:41 -0400, Bohuslav Kabrda wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 11:24:22AM -0400, Bohuslav Kabrda wrote:
>>> FAQ:
>>> Q: Why do we need to switch to Python 3?
>>> A: Because Python 2 is old, slower, less pythonic, doesn't get any more
>>> functionality and it won't be that long before the official upstream
>>> support ends [1]
>>> 
>> Although I agree with the need to switch to python3, I don't think the first
>> three reasons are very compelling arguments (they're only half-truths) -- we
>> should concentrate on the last reason and also on features that python3
>> has that pyhton2 doesn't.  Chained exceptions are a pretty nice thing, for
>> instance.
>> 
> 
> So first three reason:
> - Python 2 is old - how is that a half-truth?
> - Slower - yes, in the beginning, Python 3 was significantly slower
> because of nonoptimal code after the rewrite from Python 3. But with
> Python 3.3 for instance, you get tons of speed improvements -
> decimal module for instance got a significant boost. Brett Cannon
> had a nice presentation about speed benchmarking [1]. Yes, Python 3
> is slower in some areas, but mostly it's faster.

Mind to share some grounds for this claim?  My negligible experience
told me the contrary, but perhaps timeit module is a bad indicator.

Otherwise yes, let's get gently beyond 3000.

-- 
Jan