Problems With the Python 3 Ecosystem

I&#x27;ve been using Python 3 for all new projects for over a year. It was painful in the beginning, but my recent experience has been very rewarding. The few libraries that I use that have not been ported have, in almost all circumstances, been replaced by better libraries—I presume that this explains the lack of motivation to port the old ones.<p>That said, there are respected programmers who have good criticisms of Python 3[1] that are more level-headed than this sensationalized article; however, that has not stopped the community at large from moving to Python 3 where possible.<p>Also, as myself and others continue picking up LXC technology (Docker) the issue of host&#x2F;ops dependencies interfering with project dependencies will gradually vanish—which is the only legitimate point made by the posted article. The title should have been: &quot;My first day with Python 3&quot;<p>[1]: <a href="http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2014/5/12/everything-about-unicode/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lucumr.pocoo.org&#x2F;2014&#x2F;5&#x2F;12&#x2F;everything-about-unicode&#x2F;</a>

A few months ago I attended PyCon SG (Singapore). At some point one of the presenters[1] asked for a show of hands how many people were using Python 2, and how many Python 3. The ratio was about 10 to 1 in favor of Python 2, with hundreds of respondents.<p>Python 3 just doesn&#x27;t have traction, and it may never get there. It&#x27;s sort of a shame how Python 2 is now in maintenance-only mode, but on the other hand it&#x27;s great for professionals: we don&#x27;t need to worry about the language or the reference implementation changing ever again.<p>[1] Kenneth Reitz, as part of his excellent talk &quot;Python 2.7 &amp; Python 3: A Sacred Love Story.&quot;

You could solve that problem by not using Ubuntu: SmartOS, Debian, and OS X all have perfectly functional Python 3 packages. (as I&#x27;m sure many distributions and operating systems do)<p>This has very little to do with Python 3.

To summarize the article:<p>Author stumbles upon problems with ubuntu and some other third-party software =&gt; concludes that Python 3 is not being used anymore.<p>Well done, sir.

Python strikes me (as a Perl, Haskell developer) as the boring scripting language, which I consider to be a feature. Golang, not Python 3 is the obvious successor for people who want One Way To Do Everything.<p>Ruby was the obvious successor to Perl, rather than Perl 6, but I wonder if Rust ends up being Perl&#x27;s natural successor. It&#x27;s fast, there are awesome functional features, and Perl developers tend to be pretty comfortable with the general concept of references... Not going to appeal to the &quot;hack it to get it done quickly&quot; crowd, but as a replacement for bigger Perl 5 projects...

I don&#x27;t understand how a single anecdote about a packaging issue on a single distro is being used to draw the conclusion that &quot;Python 3 Isn&#x27;t Being Used More&quot;.

EDIT: Title changed from &quot;Why Python 3 Isn&#x27;t Being Used More&quot; to &quot;Problems With the Python 3 Ecosystem&quot;

Sorry but this misses the point. The biggest reason Python 3 isn&#x27;t being used is because most libraries haven&#x27;t been updated to support it.

Yeah, I had these problems too. I had a problem where I was following the instructions for some Django tutorial and by accident I was always invoking the python 2 interpreter when I should have been running the python 3 interpreter. Death by a thousand cuts.

Hey James,<p>Good to see your post on the front page, and it was a nice writeup. Personally for me the issue with Python 3 has been the lack of support by many good 3rd party Django apps. Until that happens I can&#x27;t see myself moving anytime soon.

Note: edited, other people made the other points I made<p>Digressive: &quot;Always wanting to be cutting-edge, I decided I would would start with ubuntu 14.04&quot;, shouldn&#x27;t that be 15.04 then? (latest I could see in the mirrors at least)

This is a complaint about the Ubuntu 14.04 python3 package, not Python itself

If you are Asian, you will feel better in python 3.

The moderation on titles is killing me.