Let's make a plan for python3.0 in Fedora 10+

[Tim Lauridsen]

Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> Matej Cepl wrote:
>> On 2008-06-09, 16:56 GMT, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>>> 1) Fedora 10 ships with the latest python-2.5.x.
>>> 2) The Fedora 11 development tree switches to python-2.6.x soon after=20
>>> F10 is released.
>>
>> Well, aren't we early enough in the F10 Rawhide to do it now instead 
>> of waiting six months?
>>
> It's Geppetto's call but one drawback of switching now is it could mean 
> shipping a non-release python-2.6 in F10 if the python release date 
> slips.  Here's python.org's schedule:
> 
>     Aug 06 2008: Python 2.6rc1 and 3.0rc1 planned
>     Aug 20 2008: Python 2.6rc2 and 3.0rc2 planned
>     Sep 03 2008: Python 2.6 and 3.0 final
> 
> Here's our tentative schedule:
>     Aug 19 2008: Feature Freeze
>     Sep 30 2008: Final devel freeze
>     Oct 10 2008: Preview release
>     Oct 28 2008: Final release
> 
> Another drawback is that since we have so many programs that we code 
> which are dependent on python, this would mean we'd have less time to 
> test that yum or anaconda, for instance, worked with all the new python 
> code before the release.  ie: More moving parts later in the cycle.
> 
> The pro sides would be:
> 1) We could include code that is written to run on 3.x/2.6's 3.x compat 
> layer.  (I haven't run across any code that only targets 3.x yet.)
> 
> 2) We and our users can get started on ports of code and experimenting 
> with 3.x/2.6 features sooner.  (Not sure how helpful this is for us as 
> we're not likely to want to port until, at least, the py-2.6 release 
> candidate (otherwise something could still change on us.)  For users, it 
> does mean that they'll be able to use F10 as a base for porting their 
> apps.)
> 
> -Toshio
> 

As a python programmer, i would love to play with new python features, 
and hopefully it will make life easier for the current unicode 
nightmare in python when working with i18n, but as a yum contributor, i 
also see the potential upgrade nightmare a switch to a non backwards 
compatibility version of python and for anaconda there will also be a 
lot of problems and all the other python stuff, it will need a lot of 
work to make the code work with python 3.0, without any benefit than 
running the latest & greatest, over time there will befits (i hpoe ).
The only safe way i can see is to have to 2 python stacks 2.5 & 3.0 for 
a while, i know it sucks, but in this case, it will make the transition 
much smoother without breaking every python program out there.

SO my proposal will be:

F10:
python 2.5 (primary)
python 3.0 (secondary)

F11:
python 3.0 (primary)
python 2.5 (secondary)

F12:
python 3.0 (primary)

Python 2.6 will only introduce an extra step in transformation 2.5 -> 
2.6 -> 3.0, so it only fit if we what a very slow transformation into 
3.0 and want to run 2.6 for a 2-4 fedora releases, before switching to 3.0.

Let me now know if it sound totally insane :)

Tim


Tim