<story><title>Key differences between Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x (2014)</title><url>http://sebastianraschka.com/Articles/2014_python_2_3_key_diff.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mnm1</author><text>&amp;quot;I would say there is currently no “right” or “wrong” as long as both Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x support the libraries that you are planning to use.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would like to consider python for my next project, but this is extremely short sighted advice which begs the very real question: why should I consider python at all for a new, multi year project when there is no clear path forward for the language and there hasn&amp;#x27;t been in a decade?&lt;p&gt;Also, how can you ask someone who is new to the language to just choose? To me that seems insane. They have nothing to base their choice on, yet this choice will decide the future and success of the app. No pressure. But to be honest, and I know this is not the community&amp;#x27;s intention, the python 2&amp;#x2F;3 split is about as unwelcome a reception to a programming language as I can imagine. Is there a more logical way to choose?&lt;p&gt;Finally, I&amp;#x27;ve now seen clients demand rewrites of python 2 code because of (probably bullshit)  concerns around its obsolescence and lack of security. Now these clients generally don&amp;#x27;t know python from their ass and I doubt they have valid technical concerns but as invalid as their concerns probably are, it&amp;#x27;s still a major issue of your big clients threaten to leave unless you rewrite all your python 2 to 3. Anyone faced this?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cthalupa</author><text>The way forward is to use Python 3. That&amp;#x27;s been the way forward since it was announced that 2.7 would be the last version, and that everything after it would just be bugfixes. The way forward became even more clearly defined when the date was set for even those to stop.&lt;p&gt;I learned Python from Python 3, and it hasn&amp;#x27;t hindered me at all, even from going back and working on Python 2 code bases, or cross compatible code bases. It&amp;#x27;s a perspective that&amp;#x27;s made me just how aware of how awful Python 2 is in comparison.&lt;p&gt;Python 2 is going to exist for a long time in a lot of places. But it&amp;#x27;s a dead end for improvements. It&amp;#x27;s a dead end for innovation. It&amp;#x27;s a dead end for bug fixes and security fixes. Would you even consider telling someone to go learn any other language that is 3 years away from even end of life support having the plug pulled? You wouldn&amp;#x27;t. Why would you do the same for Python 2?</text></comment>
<story><title>Key differences between Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x (2014)</title><url>http://sebastianraschka.com/Articles/2014_python_2_3_key_diff.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mnm1</author><text>&amp;quot;I would say there is currently no “right” or “wrong” as long as both Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x support the libraries that you are planning to use.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would like to consider python for my next project, but this is extremely short sighted advice which begs the very real question: why should I consider python at all for a new, multi year project when there is no clear path forward for the language and there hasn&amp;#x27;t been in a decade?&lt;p&gt;Also, how can you ask someone who is new to the language to just choose? To me that seems insane. They have nothing to base their choice on, yet this choice will decide the future and success of the app. No pressure. But to be honest, and I know this is not the community&amp;#x27;s intention, the python 2&amp;#x2F;3 split is about as unwelcome a reception to a programming language as I can imagine. Is there a more logical way to choose?&lt;p&gt;Finally, I&amp;#x27;ve now seen clients demand rewrites of python 2 code because of (probably bullshit)  concerns around its obsolescence and lack of security. Now these clients generally don&amp;#x27;t know python from their ass and I doubt they have valid technical concerns but as invalid as their concerns probably are, it&amp;#x27;s still a major issue of your big clients threaten to leave unless you rewrite all your python 2 to 3. Anyone faced this?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SmirkingRevenge</author><text>The link appears to be a few years old now, so its advice here I think is a bit out of date.  And some might argue it would have been out of date in 2014 as well.&lt;p&gt;It should probably be updated to say that unless you have a VERY strong reason to use 2.7, use 3.  And even then, probably still use 3, because your reasons probably aren&amp;#x27;t as strong as you think they are.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Generally the strong reasons most people had for using py2.7 for new projects were some variant of: &amp;quot;X, Y and Z libraries I need only support 2.7&amp;quot;.  But now and days, that actually stands as more of a reason to find alternate libraries.</text></comment>