[Hamara-devel] Fwd: Python 2, Python 3, Stretch & Buster

[shirish]

These are the kind of emails I am talking about.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Paul Tagliamonte <paultag at debian.org>
> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 09:50:02 -0400
> Subject: Python 2, Python 3, Stretch & Buster
> To: debian-devel-announce at lists.debian.org
>
> Aloha, Developers!
>
>
> Many of our projects in Debian are written in Python -- yay, Python!
>
> However, a large chunk are implemented in Python 2 -- Booo, Python 2!
>
>
> Background
> ==========
>
> Python 2 is scheduled to be EOL'd upstream officially and for good in 2020.
> We're in 2015 now (wow, that went quickly), and keeping our release cadence up
> (3 years a pop) puts Stretch up in 2018, and Buster in 2021.
>
> Short of a brilliant Stretch cycle, this should be basically rightish.
>
> after Python 2 is EOL -- that's right, EOL! Nuts, right?
>
>
> A bunch of us at PyCon had a gathering of the shadowy Debian Python cabal
> (notes from that meeting can be found at
> <20150414220155.GA2589 at cassiel.pault.ag>), and this fact hit us. We've been
> talking more seriously about Python 2's deprecation, and what we do as the
> maintainers of so much of the ecosystem / cpython / pypy maintainers.
>
> The idea is to basically stop uploading new Python 2 only libraries, port
> things on the critical path, and swap leaf packages to Python 3. Details on
> this can be found in the notes. Exact plans and policies are being resolved,
> but that's the general idea.
>
>
> Given that I'm such a radical Python 3 proponent, I've decided to start the
> effort for our infra. I seem to have a thing for flame threads, I guess.
>
> The first step is to evaluate things within our control -- Infrastructure.
>
>
> Tasks
> =====
>
> So, what can we do about it?
>
> Great question! Since the DPMT and PAPT will soon be taking a more aggressive
> approach on the ecosystem (porting as hard as we can to Python 2), you can help
> by doing some of the following:
>
>      - If *you* maintain or work on a Python 2 project that's used in Debian
>        Development (buildd, release tools, QA tools, ftpteam tools), please
>        email me a link to the project. An accurate census will help hugely. If
>        it works on Python 2, Python 2 and Python 3 or just Python 3, you should
>        include those details as well.
>
>      - Identify what Debian Infra or Meta-Debian projects require Python 2 due
>        to unported or unbuilt Python 3 packages. Feel free to just scan your
>        top-level direct dependencies, we can play with the tree of deps.
>
>          + Consider filing a bug on packages which are supported on Python 3
>            upstream but do not currently build Python 3 packages.
>
>          + Consider filing a bug on packages which do *not* have upstream
>            support, and look into modern implementations of libraries you need.
>
>          + If you have to do either of the above, consider patching it!
>            Remember: Teamwork makes the dream work!
>
>          ( Note: the usertag on the above has not been decided yet, check in
>                  for that later )
>
>      - Port the project to a hybrid Python 2/3 codebase (it's easy most of the
>        time, I promise!) but stay on Python 2, which will let you preform an
>        incremental upgrade. Consider test cases! Testing is great! I suggest
>        `tox` to let you continue to run the test suite for multiple versions
>        of Python.
>
>      - Deploy or upload the tool to the archive or our infra using pure Python
>        3. This is the best if you have some test cases you can rely on (Python
>        has some wonderful stuff you should totally be using!)
>
>
> Plans
> =====
>
> I plan on creating a Python 3 porting team. It'll have a fancy buzzword name,
> but I'm a bit too tired to think of one now. Such a porting team would consist
> of folks who are here to help port things important to us (Debian) to Python 3
> so that we can get off of Python 2 for Buster.
>
> If you're interested in this effort, please email me. This is a really good new
> contributor task, so if anyone's asked you how they could get involved with
> Debian, you should send them to us!
>
> We'll be nice, I promise!
>
> I'll be making a Mailing List for this on Alioth sometime soon.
>
>
>
> Takeaways
> =========
>
> The future is now! It's time to port as much as we can to Python 3 in the next
> two cycles as we can, so we don't have to rely on an old, deprecated and broken
> Python 2. As the kids say -- 'Sorry not sorry'
>
> When you see Python 2 - treat it as legacy! Please encourage porting!
>
> We can all soon look forward to the day where we no longer have to play Unicode
> whack-a-mole and have a language getting new features again! I've been using
> Python 3 for all new work code, and personal stuff, it's pretty great!
>
> If you are interested, or know anyone who might be interested, I'll be putting
> together a Python 2 => Python 3 task force. Please email me privately if you're
> interested, I'll keep a list of names for the soon to not be created list.
>
>
>
> Python [2] is dead! Long live Python [3]!
>      Paul

-- 
Shirish Agarwal,
Community Lead,
Hamaralinux.org