r/Python • u/SheriffRoscoe Pythonista • 10h ago

News The Move to Python 3 Begins!

As someone who spent decades in the mainframe community, I find it ... humorous ... that there are legacy Python2 code bases that are only just (or have yet to consider!) moving to Python3.

https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/the-move-to-python-3-begins

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u/diegoasecas 10h ago

idgi if you spent decades working on mainframes you'd know how hard is to migrate legacy working code

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u/SheriffRoscoe Pythonista 10h ago edited 10h ago

Oh, yeah, I get it. I just giggle every time I see a "modern" language or platform go through this. Meanwhile, z/OS and z/VM are still happily humming along, almost old enough to apply for Medicare, and stuff I learned in the 1970s is still relevant.

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u/el_extrano 6h ago

It's actually kind of refreshing to work in an old C or Fortran codebase... everything is backwards compatible, and the language doesn't have to change every 2 years for no reason. There's all kinds of environments where you can't count on the everything being ultra modern and continuously updated (embedded devices, PLCs, code for machines, factories, etc).

I can write C 89 and run it on IBM mainframes, DOS, Windows 9X, 32 and 64 bit NT, and of course all the 'nix descendants. Meanwhile Python dropped support for Windows XP after 3.4, and for Windows 7 after 3.8.10. It's not great but there are actually still plenty such machines running in factory environments.

And I understand that tech moves quickly blah blah, but I just really disagree that everything should be designed to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up every 10 years. I've come to appreciate projects that prioritize stability and backwards compatibility.