Re: Beginner needs advice
On 31/05/2011 06:48, Ben Finney wrote: Dennis Lee Bieberwlfr...@ix.netcom.com writes: Well... He did say find the bathroom, not ask for directions to whatever euphemism is in current usage (water closet, W/C, loo ?) The room which contains the bath is the bathroom. Assuming that the toilet is in the same room as the bath is parochial. If he wants the toilet, “bathroom” is a euphemism, and he should instead ask for directions to the toilet. Toilet is also a euphemism, as are water closet, WC, loo, etc. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. Men and women. MS Office and Open Office. IE6 and HTML. -- Dotan Cohen http://gibberish.co.il http://what-is-what.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Dotan Cohen dotanco...@gmail.com wrote: If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. Men and women. This is a slightly different sense of the word compatible than we have been discussing: able to work together to perform a function, not interchangeable. MS Office and Open Office. Nope. Remember, the assertion by harrismh777 was that all you have to do to prove incompatibility is to show 'one' (1) test case where compatibility fails. As one example, any Calc document that uses the EASTERSUNDAY function will fail in Excel, since Excel does not provide it. I could easily come up with other examples (let's not even get into the differences in macros), but one is all I need. IE6 and HTML. :-) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 21:29, Ian Kelly ian.g.ke...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Dotan Cohen dotanco...@gmail.com wrote: If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. Men and women. This is a slightly different sense of the word compatible than we have been discussing: able to work together to perform a function, not interchangeable. MS Office and Open Office. Nope. Remember, the assertion by harrismh777 was that all you have to do to prove incompatibility is to show 'one' (1) test case where compatibility fails. As one example, any Calc document that uses the EASTERSUNDAY function will fail in Excel, since Excel does not provide it. I could easily come up with other examples (let's not even get into the differences in macros), but one is all I need. IE6 and HTML. :-) Ian, I'm surprised, you of all people might have noticed that my sarcasm was intended to point out exactly that no two things are compatible, least of all those things designed with compatibility as a design spec! -- Dotan Cohen http://gibberish.co.il http://what-is-what.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Steven D'Aprano wrote: LOL I invite you to consider the difference between a legally dead person moments before being resuscitated by a paramedic, ( ... alive ) versus a chicken that has just been beheaded and is still running around the yard, ( ... alive ) versus a million-year-old fossilized bone that has turned to stone. ( ... mostly 'dead' ) Who could possibly justify saying that all three are equally dead? LOL( the first two [ roflol ] are 'partly' alive... ) ( the third is just mostly dead... ) Beware the tyranny of the discontinuous mind. Sic Semper Tyrannus ! Compatibility is inherently continuous, a matter of degree. Compatible by degrees is incompatible. Just 'how' incompatible determines whether the factor(s) are utterly useless, or just difficult to negotiate. (uh, oh,... me suspects another analogy fallacy coming up... ) This is especially true when it comes to languages, both natural and programming. ( Yup... analogy fallacy for Ænglisc speakers... ) British English and American English are perhaps 99.5% compatible, but table a motion means completely opposite things in British and American English. (In Britain, it means to deal with it immediately; in the USA, it means to postpone it.) Should we conclude from this that British and American English are different languages and completely incompatible? We Americans have not spoken 'English' in well over two hundred years... :) roflol However, I guarantee that if I'm dumped unaided in Piccadilly I'll be able to hail a cab, pay my £12.00 and get myself to Liverpool Street Station, find the bathroom, and be on the correct train just in time for dinner, all without looking into the English dictionary. On the other hand (playing along with this analogy fallacy) if I dump a python newbie unaided in the middle of 2.5 and ask them to format a simple polytonic Greek unicode string and output it with print to stdout (redirected to a file) they will fail... maybe even if they have a dictionary ! The differences between Python 2 and 3 are less than those between American and British English. absurd and unsubstantiated claim... quickly now call the bobbies, call the bobbies !!! To describe them as different languages, as if going from Python 2 to 3 was like translating English to Italian, is absurd. ... no, um, its more like migrating ye old Ænglisc... (the Ænglisc of say, Beowulf ) to modern English still assuming the English analogy fallacy holds... which,... it doesn't... Ever tried to read Beowulf in the original? Ever tried to write Ænglisc ? kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Ian Kelly wrote: You have just misrepresented Steven's argument, which is rather ironic considering that you're the one who brought up straw-men. Steven did not use one code snippet to demonstrate that Python 2 and Python 3 are fully compatible. The code snippet merely demonstrated that Python 2 and 3 are not totally incompatible as you had claimed. Ian gets the Christmas turkey for pinning the irony on me fair 'n square... 'demonstrating' the straw-man is intimately and infinitely more delicious than just defining it... besides, the tables must be turned me thinks...:) I realize you are now asserting that compatibility is a boolean condition, and that totally incompatible is a redundant phrase that you tossed out as a joke. I don't know whether you're sincere or backpedaling, but in any case this assertion is flatly ludicrous. Following your definition,*nothing* is compatible with anything else. If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. one man, and one woman And finally, . . . you seem to view all analogies as false) regardless of what that person actually said ... all analogies are argumentative fallacy. Now, the analogy event (or ontological state of the analogy) may in fact be true... but that event or state can *never* be used to assert truth in 'different event' or fact of 'another state' as the 'same thing(s)'. The truth or fallacy of an argument should never be asserted by the use of an analogy regardless how well the analogy illustrates the point. Some folks believe that a good illustration of a point can be used to prove the point true (or false), when in fact the illustration (the analogy event) is often nothing more than entertaining explanation (Steven's are some of the best, I admit !) -- even if that person does*sometimes* actually commit those fallacies -- then you yourself are employing an ad hominem. ... oh ho ho... lol yes... again... guilty as charged. kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Jason Tackaberry wrote: At least, his arguments make more sense if I read him as arguing from the not completely compatible position. It's possible he is intentionally equivocating for dramatic effect. yes -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Tue, 31 May 2011 01:32:01 +0100, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: Steven D'Aprano wrote: Compatibility is inherently continuous, a matter of degree. Compatible by degrees is incompatible. Just 'how' incompatible determines whether the factor(s) are utterly useless, or just difficult to negotiate. (uh, oh,... me suspects another analogy fallacy coming up... ) This is especially true when it comes to languages, both natural and programming. ( Yup... analogy fallacy for Ænglisc speakers... ) I don't know about you, but I speak English not Anglish. This is how an aesc is pronounced, after all. British English and American English are perhaps 99.5% compatible, but table a motion means completely opposite things in British and American English. (In Britain, it means to deal with it immediately; in the USA, it means to postpone it.) Should we conclude from this that British and American English are different languages and completely incompatible? We Americans have not spoken 'English' in well over two hundred years... :) roflol Quite the contrary, in fact. Much American usage of English actually better preserves the styles of eighteenth century English usage, having managed to avoid some of the corrections of Victorian grammarians. However, I guarantee that if I'm dumped unaided in Piccadilly I'll be able to hail a cab, pay my £12.00 and get myself to Liverpool Street Station, find the bathroom, and be on the correct train just in time for dinner, all without looking into the English dictionary. And I guarantee that you'd get odd looks for at least one of those. You may not notice; we Brits are used to translating the large amount of US TV we get back into British English. On the other hand (playing along with this analogy fallacy) if I dump a python newbie unaided in the middle of 2.5 and ask them to format a simple polytonic Greek unicode string and output it with print to stdout (redirected to a file) they will fail... maybe even if they have a dictionary ! Now this is an analogy fallacy, and an obvious one at that. -- Rhodri James *-* Wildebeest Herder to the Masses -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 6:43 PM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: I realize you are now asserting that compatibility is a boolean condition, and that totally incompatible is a redundant phrase that you tossed out as a joke. I don't know whether you're sincere or backpedaling, but in any case this assertion is flatly ludicrous. Following your definition,*nothing* is compatible with anything else. If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. one man, and one woman Now you're equivocating. The discussion has been about whether Python 2 and Python 3 are compatible in the interchangeable sense, not in the capable of functioning together sense. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On 5/30/2011 8:32 PM, harrismh777 wrote: Ever tried to read Beowulf in the original? Ever tried to write Ænglisc ? I have, and it is a lot further from modern American than Python 2 and 3 are from each other. -- Terry Jan Reedy -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On 5/30/2011 8:32 PM, harrismh777 wrote: However, I guarantee that if I'm dumped unaided in Piccadilly I'll be able to hail a cab, pay my £12.00 and get myself to Liverpool Street Station, find the bathroom, and be on the correct train just in time for dinner, all without looking into the English dictionary. Because natural language is redundant and most speakers are forgiving, while computer language are stripped on much redundancy and their interpreters tend to be unforgiving, so a single missing comma or space can raise a SyntaxError. Python is designed to do so, and allow/require correction, rather than guess and go on. This is not so bad; what if the cabbie does not understand you but say OK, guesses the destination, ignores any protestations, and asks for £30 at the wrong destination. Following people who deafly say OK and take you whereever is a real hazard in some countries. Some tourist guides even warn about the practice. Anyway, 'L i v e r p o o l S t r e e t S t a t i o n' is such a trivial utterance as to not be comparable to anything as complicated as a typical 5-line function. -- Terry Jan Reedy -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Ian Kelly ian.g.ke...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 6:43 PM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. one man, and one woman Now you're equivocating. The discussion has been about whether Python 2 and Python 3 are compatible in the interchangeable sense, not in the capable of functioning together sense. Indeed. If a man has a scripting language, and a woman has a scripting language, the two would differ because there are things each can do that the other cannot. But there's a lot of things that both can do, so the two languages would be highly similar in purpose and functionality. Hmm. If you did write those two scripting languages, we would finally be able to type man woman to get docs on how to talk to women... Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Chris Angelico wrote: Hmm. If you did write those two scripting languages, we would finally be able to type man woman to get docs on how to talk to women... Which just wouldn't be fair, because her use of man man would lead her no closer to understanding how men speak... (er, think, um... ) :) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber wlfr...@ix.netcom.com wrote: On Mon, 30 May 2011 21:34:09 -0400, Terry Reedy tjre...@udel.edu declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general: On 5/30/2011 8:32 PM, harrismh777 wrote: Ever tried to read Beowulf in the original? Ever tried to write Ænglisc ? I have, and it is a lot further from modern American than Python 2 and 3 are from each other. Heck... Python 2 and 3 are modern vs Shakespearian English... Chaucer is closer to Python vs Ruby... Beowulf? Might as well be APL... -- No, Python 2 vs 3 is more of American English vs British English. People who speak one of them work under the philosophy that if y'all would just speak English we wouldn't have these problems -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Dennis Lee Bieber wlfr...@ix.netcom.com writes: Well... He did say find the bathroom, not ask for directions to whatever euphemism is in current usage (water closet, W/C, loo ?) The room which contains the bath is the bathroom. Assuming that the toilet is in the same room as the bath is parochial. If he wants the toilet, “bathroom” is a euphemism, and he should instead ask for directions to the toilet. -- \ “When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, | `\ we're schizophrenic.” —Jane Wagner, via Lily Tomlin, 1985 | _o__) | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 8:33 PM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: In this present case the straw-man was not me, rather the straw-man was the python language itself. You chose a code-snippet (one small puny dangle that doesn't prove a thing) and used it to speak for the entire language! As though one code-block is enough to demonstrate compatibility for the entire language in all of its nuances and details. To prove something positive with a test case requires that you provide *all* test cases, or that you provide an algorithm that accounts for *all* test cases... you cannot prove compatibility with a code-snippet. You have just misrepresented Steven's argument, which is rather ironic considering that you're the one who brought up straw-men. Steven did not use one code snippet to demonstrate that Python 2 and Python 3 are fully compatible. The code snippet merely demonstrated that Python 2 and 3 are not totally incompatible as you had claimed. I realize you are now asserting that compatibility is a boolean condition, and that totally incompatible is a redundant phrase that you tossed out as a joke. I don't know whether you're sincere or backpedaling, but in any case this assertion is flatly ludicrous. Following your definition, *nothing* is compatible with anything else. If you disagree, then I invite you to list one example of two different things that are compatible. And finally, would you please just knock off the fallacy crap? If you assert something, and another person counters with a straw-man, and you respond by dismissing his argument as a straw-man, your response is valid. But if you assert something, and another person makes a counter-argument, to whom you invariably respond by crying Straw-man! or False analogy! (or in your case, Analogy!; you seem to view all analogies as false) regardless of what that person actually said -- even if that person does *sometimes* actually commit those fallacies -- then you yourself are employing an ad hominem. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sat, 28 May 2011 21:02:47 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: Minor, yes, until you need to make something work--- only to be frustrated to find that a detail that was not expected has risen to bite a sensitive place... :) Just like when migrating from Python 2.3 to 2.6. And 1.5 and 2.0, and 2.0 and 2.2, and 2.2 and 2.3. I am amazed at how many folks are not using 3.x/ Why? (beats me), Because: (1) the major operating systems either don't provide Python at all (Windows), or are conservatively still using Python 2.6 or even 2.5 (Mac OS, most Linux distros); (2) the Python website still recommends that Python 2.x is the status quo, Python 3.x is the shiny new thing http://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3 ; and (3) the most of the big frameworks and libraries have either just recently been upgraded to support 3.x, or haven't yet been upgraded. There's very little mystery about it. Migration to 3.x is going according to plan. The majority aren't expected to migrate until probably 3.4 or even 3.5. but how do I know they're not using it...? Because, if they were trying to use it with 2.x knowledge they would be complaining bloody murder.. for instance, how do we reload a module in 2.x... with, um, reload. This has always been the way... every book says so, *Every* book? Even these? http://diveintopython3.org/ http://www.qtrac.eu/py3book.html http://www.mindviewinc.com/Books/Python3Patterns/Index.php Please quote chapter and verse. [...] PS Something nobody has pointed out yet is that completely incompatible is redundant. That's because it is not redundant. There is a difference between 1% compatible and 99% compatible and 100% incompatible. ... its like saying totally destroyed. I was trying to be funny, but nobody unpinned it... I'm disappointed. Some of the posts here are referring to the two languages as partially incompatible reminds me of that line from Princess Bride... ... he's not dead, hes only mostly dead!... and mostly dead is partly alive! To say that 3.x is partly compatible with 2.x is silly, What a ridiculous statement, and one which flies in the face of major projects like numpy which support 2.x and 3.x out of a single code base. I invite you to consider the difference between a legally dead person moments before being resuscitated by a paramedic, versus a chicken that has just been beheaded and is still running around the yard, versus a million-year-old fossilized bone that has turned to stone. Who could possibly justify saying that all three are equally dead? Beware the tyranny of the discontinuous mind. http://www.sciencemusings.com/2007/07/tyranny-of-discontinuous-mind.html Both life and compatibility are matters of degree, not binary states. For proper operation, an electrical device might require a 6V 250mA transformer, but it might work well enough with one that provides just 5V and 240mA, provided you don't stress the device too much. We often design our physical devices to force compatibility to be all-or- nothing, e.g. you can't fit a USB plug into an audio jack, no matter how you try. But that's enforced by the design, not because compatibility is inherently true/false. Compatibility is inherently continuous, a matter of degree. This is especially true when it comes to languages, both natural and programming. British English and American English are perhaps 99.5% compatible, but table a motion means completely opposite things in British and American English. (In Britain, it means to deal with it immediately; in the USA, it means to postpone it.) Should we conclude from this that British and American English are different languages and completely incompatible? The differences between Python 2 and 3 are less than those between American and British English. To describe them as different languages, as if going from Python 2 to 3 was like translating English to Italian, is absurd. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On 11-05-29 04:06 AM, Ian Kelly wrote: I realize you are now asserting that compatibility is a boolean condition, and that totally incompatible is a redundant phrase that you tossed out as a joke. As a casual lurker reading this thread, I believe he is equating completely incompatible with not completely compatible. At least, his arguments make more sense if I read him as arguing from the not completely compatible position. It's possible he is intentionally equivocating for dramatic effect. But they are different -- both connotatively and denotatively -- and to argue against the claim that Python 2 and 3 are completely incompatible it seems to me sufficient to provide a single non-trivial counter-example, which Steven has already done. Cheers, Jason. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On May 28, 9:33 pm, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: Steven D'Aprano wrote: A straw man is not when somebody points out holes in your argument, or unwanted implications that you didn't realise were there. It is when somebody makes claims on your behalf that you did not make to discredit you, not because you don't understand the implications of your own argument. The straw-man fallacy is when you erect a straw man to represent the actual man (or idea) which can be easily knocked down, and then you proceed to knock it down (the straw-man) as though the straw man was the actual man, or idea... proving your point as-it-were against your opponent when in fact you have only just knocked down the straw-man... leaving the real man standing. This fallacy has a couple of nuances (sometimes combined with metaphor or analogy fallacy) and you are a master at presenting both... thankfully you usually don't try to present both at the same time! :) In this present case the straw-man was not me, rather the straw-man was the python language itself. You chose a code-snippet (one small puny dangle that doesn't prove a thing) and used it to speak for the entire language! As though one code-block is enough to demonstrate compatibility for the entire language in all of its nuances and details. To prove something positive with a test case requires that you provide *all* test cases, or that you provide an algorithm that accounts for *all* test cases... you cannot prove compatibility with a code-snippet. On the other hand, all you have to do to prove incompatibility is to show one (1) test case where compatibility fails... and of course for the present case there are many that can be shown, in fact, hundreds of them. The thing that nobody has presented here yet is that *all* the books declare that 3.x is incompatible with 2.x/ ... some of them go out of their way to tell the reader that they are only going to deal with 3.x and not 2.x in any way... and others go out of their way to point out the hundreds of nuances in details between the two languages. (and a good thing too, for those of us who must work with both! ) So this fact is not alluding the press... the point being not to bust anybody in the chops, but to point out that it is not helpful to move the community forward with a new language and get mass adoption (not just early adopters) to lie about the differences between the two sets... yes, for trivial code blocks that use prime constructs, integer math, and the print statement, not much has changed. But in real world applications of the language there are many hundreds of details that have changed or been added (deleted) which will make life difficult for the uninitiated. Don't mislead people by saying that very little has changed. Tell them that the philosophy is the same (what Chris called python 'think' ) but be honest about the details of syntax, environment, layout, and morphology. Bravo! PS: And yes, Steven is a master at the straw man fallacy. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On May 29, 2:28 pm, Jason Tackaberry t...@urandom.ca wrote: On 11-05-29 04:06 AM, Ian Kelly wrote: I realize you are now asserting that compatibility is a boolean condition, and that totally incompatible is a redundant phrase that you tossed out as a joke. As a casual lurker reading this thread, I believe he is equating completely incompatible with not completely compatible. At least, his arguments make more sense if I read him as arguing from the not completely compatible position. It's possible he is intentionally equivocating for dramatic effect. But they are different -- both connotatively and denotatively -- and to argue against the claim that Python 2 and 3 are completely incompatible it seems to me sufficient to provide a single non-trivial counter-example, which Steven has already done. Python 2.x and Pythin 3.x are two different dialects just like Humans (Python 3.x) and Chimpanzees (Python 2.x) are similar (compatible) but very different versions of talking apes (languages). Sure humans (Python 3.x) and chimps (Python 2.x) share some similarities (much more than say humans (Python3.x) and fish (Lisp) do) however there are many incompatible differences. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 9:00 AM, rantingrick rantingr...@gmail.com wrote: Python 2.x and Pythin 3.x are two different dialects just like Humans (Python 3.x) and Chimpanzees (Python 2.x) are similar (compatible) but very different versions of talking apes (languages). Sure humans (Python 3.x) and chimps (Python 2.x) share some similarities (much more than say humans (Python3.x) and fish (Lisp) do) however there are many incompatible differences. Chimpanzees do not use language in the same way that humans do, and in any case, it's pretty ridiculous to talk of the 'Human language' in anything other than a fantasy roleplaying game. It's more comparable to call Py2 scientific Englishand Py3 medical English. There are differences (what's a calorie?), but for the most part, they are the same language. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Fri, 27 May 2011 15:40:53 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: Steven D'Aprano wrote: Would you care to revise your claims? No. You have erected a straw-man... once again. You keep using that term, but it is clear to me that you don't have the foggiest idea of what the straw-man fallacy is. A straw man is not when somebody points out holes in your argument, or unwanted implications that you didn't realise were there. It is when somebody makes claims on your behalf that you did not make to discredit you, not because you don't understand the implications of your own argument. You stated that Python 2 and Python 3 are COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE -- your words, not mine. You have repeated that claim, in this very post, and others, despite having been shown that they are not completely incompatible at all, that it is possible to write both forward and backward compatible code that works in every version of Python from 1.5 through 3.2 inclusive. Yes, it is true that you can also write code that works in 2.5 but not 3.2, but so what? You can also write code that works in 2.5 but not 2.6: raise some error # works in 2.5 and older Or 2.4 and 2.5: True = 23 # works in 2.4 and older or 2.3 and 2.4: None = 42 # works in 2.3 and older Do you think that Python 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 are four completely different languages, and if not, why not? Python 3 is not the first backwards incompatible version of Python. [...] All of these things are for the better, I must add. But, the point is that 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x in real ways. And you've done it again, despite the fact that you can write compatible code that works in all versions of Python from 1.5 to 3.2, and easily write non-trivial code that works in 2.7 and 3.2. For larger projects, it's probably better to keep a separate 2.x and 3.x fork, but that's for convenience, nothing more: numpy, for example, supports 2 and 3 out of a single code base. http://www.mail-archive.com/numpy-discussion%40scipy.org/msg26524.html Perhaps you don't understand what completely means and are confusing it with slightly. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
* Thomas Rachel (Sat, 28 May 2011 07:06:53 +0200) Am 27.05.2011 17:52 schrieb Steven D'Aprano: On Fri, 27 May 2011 09:40:53 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x (some call it a dialect, but that is a lie). Completely incompatible? A lie? Hard word, but it is true. Many things can and will fall on your feet when moving. I think we should stop talking about (in)compatability because everyone seems to associate something different with that term (incompatible = no Python2 to code will run with Python3, not all Python2 code will run with Python3). The question is: if you want (or have) to run your code under Python3, how likely is that it will run unmodified? My experience is: unless the code is especially written with Python3 compatability or just a short snippet, it's actually quite unlikely that it will run. I modified three programs/modules (none of them written with Python3 in mind - I was thinking that Python 3000 would come out some day after Perl 6, PHP 6 and GNU Hurd; how could I know that the Python developers actually mean business?) One is a tool box kind of module. I had to insert lots of list() and add a complete function that would deal with the different behaviour of sort. Probably easy to find the problems if you have extensive unit tests but without it was a tedious nightmare. The second a kind of script template. gettext.install has no unicode = True. Easy fix but I wondered why Python 3 does not ignore the keyword simply. The third, a more real world complete application using PyQt. Took me about a day to fix. The problem was not just with the code but also with the tools (pyuic4, pyrcc4). Without the PyQt mailing list this wouldn't have been possible. Still: a complete workday (or even more) for 150 lines of code. Thorsten -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Thorsten Kampe thors...@thorstenkampe.de wrote: The question is: if you want (or have) to run your code under Python3, how likely is that it will run unmodified? My experience is: unless the code is especially written with Python3 compatability or just a short snippet, it's actually quite unlikely that it will run. But what about the 2to3 tool? If you use that, then how much more is there to deal with? I installed Python 3 and found that a little bandwidth monitor stopped working. After running it through 2to3, there were only a couple of things needing fixing, including the HTTPS library (it didn't like my Unicode strings, I had to go b for them), but the bulk of it was fine. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
* Thorsten Kampe (Sat, 28 May 2011 08:38:54 +0200) My experience is: unless the code is especially written with Python3 compatability [...] Oops, I meant unless the code is specifically written with Python3 compatability in mind [...] Thorsten -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sat, 28 May 2011 08:38:54 +0200, Thorsten Kampe wrote: * Thomas Rachel (Sat, 28 May 2011 07:06:53 +0200) Am 27.05.2011 17:52 schrieb Steven D'Aprano: On Fri, 27 May 2011 09:40:53 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x (some call it a dialect, but that is a lie). Completely incompatible? A lie? Hard word, but it is true. Many things can and will fall on your feet when moving. I think we should stop talking about (in)compatability because everyone seems to associate something different with that term (incompatible = no Python2 to code will run with Python3, not all Python2 code will run with Python3). There is a difference between completely incompatible and merely incompatible to some degree. It just takes *one* tiny incompatibility to stop a program running, so will it run unmodified? is hardly a good measure of the degree of incompatibility. Python 2.5 and 2.6 are incompatible to some degree. I recently had to port a client's program from 2.3 to 2.6. I did it in two steps: about two hours to get it working in 2.5, then the same to get it working in 2.6, and then about a day of effort to iron out all the display issues in Tkinter (such as text being shown in giant letters). Judging by the binary Yes/No does it run unmodified? test, I'd have to say that Python 2.3, 2.5 and 2.6 are completely different -- which would be foolish. Nobody sensible applies such a simple-minded, overly strict test to minor releases, or even between major releases like 1.5 versus 2.0. What would be the point? It is not the least bit helpful to learn that your 2.3 code doesn't run unmodified in 2.6. (Learning that it does, on the other hand, is useful. But such code is in a minority.) And yet some people are willing to throw commonsense away and apply such an obviously unsuitable test to Python 3. These people vehemently insist that the differences between Python 2.7 and 3.2 are of the same qualitative kind as between Ruby and PHP (they're *different languages* you see, not merely different dialects of the same language, and anyone who tells you different is not just mistaken but *lying*). The question is: if you want (or have) to run your code under Python3, how likely is that it will run unmodified? That's not a useful question. The useful question is to ask how much effort is it to make the code run in the new version. The effort might be zero (but probably isn't), or it might be a minute, or an hour, or a day, or six months... that depends partly on the complexity of your code and partly on the differences between Python 2.x and 3.x. A trivial app might take three minutes to port from Python 2.5 to 3.2. A complicated app might take three months to port from 2.5 to 2.6. What generalization do we make from this? My experience is: unless the code is especially written with Python3 compatability or just a short snippet, it's actually quite unlikely that it will run. You describe taking a full day to upgrade a 150 line PyQt application. Only it wasn't a 150 line application, was it? By your own admission, much of the problems were in the library, PyQt, so it was more like 150,000 lines. (Or whatever the size of PyQt is...) Rather than it took a full day to upgrade 150 lines to use Python 3, that's terrible!, it is more like it only took a day to upgrade my 150 line app *and* work around a whole lot of problems with a huge library, that's really great! -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sat, 28 May 2011 07:06:53 +0200 Thomas Rachel nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa...@spamschutz.glglgl.de wrote: Completely incompatible? A lie? Hard word, but it is true. Many things can and will fall on your feet when moving. There are very many subtle differences. The space between Completely incompatible and many subtle differences is about the size of the Grand Canyon. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain da...@druid.net | Democracy is three wolves http://www.druid.net/darcy/| and a sheep voting on +1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082)(eNTP) | what's for dinner. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On May 27, 5:33 pm, Ethan Furman et...@stoneleaf.us wrote: Lew Schwartz wrote: So, if I read between the lines correctly, you recommend Python 3? Does the windows version install with a development environment? Dabo, last I checked, uses wxPython, which uses wxWidgets (sp?), which is not yet ported to Python 3. So if you got that route you'll need to stay with 2.7. ~Ethan~ Just this past Tuesday, I blindly downloaded 3.1 and found that at the level I am workloing, all it took to get my 2.7 code to run was to put parens around the print arguments and double the slashes in integer division. I didn't even use the 2to3 automation. But I am a noob to Python, which is my tenth computer language. Maybe when I get more ambitious I will find more serious differences. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Ethan Furman wrote: Um -- how can you have on the one hand completely not compatible and on the other code that can cross-execute on either version? Great question ! .. .it has to do with education. ... if you learn 2.x (only) and attempt to program on the 3.x platform, (without helps, education, migration tools, etc) you will fail... and you will be frustrated. Why? 3.x is not compatible with 2.x knowledge. If you learn 3.2 (only) and attempt to program on 2.x you will fail, and you will be frustrated. Why? Because the two languages are different and incompatible. Now then, can you learn both?... sure.Can you migrate one to the other with enough knowledge and effort?... yup. Is it possible (with enough cleverness) to write code that will run on both without modification... yes... Are the two languages compatible?No! Where this really counts of course is real-world apps. It is relatively easy to write trivial code blocks that demonstrate that nothing has changed in 3.x/ ... and they are *all* misleading. The truth is that hundreds of details have changed making the two 'versions' actually different languages. If I use the '89 version (1) KR to write a C program, and compile it on the current gcc without mods it will run. If I use the 2.5 python manual to write a python program and try to run it on 3.2 it will fail (for many, many reasons). This is my definition of completely incompatible. The two languages are different; period. The problem is that they look similar. :) kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 5:21 AM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: The problem is that they look similar. :) C looks like every other bracey language in the world. Is that a problem? According to Wikipedia, there's quite a lot of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_by_category#Curly-bracket_languages I would say that the difference between the difference between Python 2 and Python 3 and the difference between C and Javascript (there, parse THAT one without parentheses!) is that the latter have a fundamentally different data philosophy. Both versions of Python are the same language, because they think the same way; high level objects that can be multiply-referenced, and are disposed of when no longer needed. (That sounds like an implementation detail - refcounting - but I don't really care how it does it under the hood, as long as I can have multiple variables pointing to the same object, and have objects not need explicit deallocation.) Little syntactic differences like whether 'print' is a function or a statement, and whether the simple slash operator between two ints returns a float, and the fact that Unicode is the default string type, are comparatively minor; on 'most every philosophical point, the two dialects agree. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On 5/28/2011 2:57 PM, Uncle Ben wrote:
Just this past Tuesday, I blindly downloaded 3.1 and found that at the
level I am workloing, all it took to get my 2.7 code to run was to put
parens around the print arguments and double the slashes in integer
division. I didn't even use the 2to3 automation.
1//2 works in 2.7 and earlier.
from __future__ import division
gives 1/2 == 0.5 and in 3.x
print('abc') is the same as print 'abc'
The parens only make a difference with 2 or more items.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Chris Angelico wrote: Both versions of Python are the same language, because they think the same way; I appreciate your thought. And there is an obvious continuity in philosophy between 2.x and 3.x; in fact even a cursory study of the history of python demonstrates a concerted effort to build on the best points of 2.x while eliminating the worst. 3.x builds upon and adds to 2.x, as (loosely) C++ builds on and adds to C. Perhaps python3 should have been named Python+ ! ( I think I've already told yous guys that I invoke python3 on my desk machine with--- Anaconda I see your point. But, knowing that 3.x thinks like 2.x is not helpful when we all know that languages don't think, people do. People need to be able to understand the 'details' of the language in order to be able to think with it... Little syntactic differences like whether 'print' is a function or a statement, and whether the simple slash operator between two ints returns a float, and the fact that Unicode is the default string type, are comparatively minor; on 'most every philosophical point, the two dialects agree. Minor, yes, until you need to make something work--- only to be frustrated to find that a detail that was not expected has risen to bite a sensitive place... :) I am amazed at how many folks are not using 3.x/ Why? (beats me), but how do I know they're not using it...? Because, if they were trying to use it with 2.x knowledge they would be complaining bloody murder.. for instance, how do we reload a module in 2.x... with, um, reload. This has always been the way... every book says so, and every one of us has re-invoked a .py file by using relaod. Reload doesn't even work on 3.x without an import. If you don't know that, well, you're sol until you figure it out, read it, or somebody tells you. This ought not to be. Even the environments of these two languages are incompatible (partially) :) PS Something nobody has pointed out yet is that completely incompatible is redundant. ... its like saying totally destroyed. I was trying to be funny, but nobody unpinned it... I'm disappointed. Some of the posts here are referring to the two languages as partially incompatible reminds me of that line from Princess Bride... ... he's not dead, hes only mostly dead!... and mostly dead is partly alive! To say that 3.x is partly compatible with 2.x is silly, but to say that 3.x 'thinks' the same way as 2.x is almost pythonesque... I almost like that... :) kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 12:02 PM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: Chris Angelico wrote: Both versions of Python are the same language, because they think the same way; I see your point. But, knowing that 3.x thinks like 2.x is not helpful when we all know that languages don't think, people do. I was being (deliberately) sloppy with the English language there, but I was referring to the fundamental philosophies of Python, which are common across both versions (and, presumably, most/all of them can be seen in Python 1 too; I've never used Python 1). Little syntactic differences like whether 'print' is a function or a statement, and whether the simple slash operator between two ints returns a float, and the fact that Unicode is the default string type, are comparatively minor; on 'most every philosophical point, the two dialects agree. Minor, yes, until you need to make something work--- only to be frustrated to find that a detail that was not expected has risen to bite a sensitive place... :) I get far worse than those when I switch between languages and forget operator precedence, or forget that function X has its parameters the other way around, or whatever. They are minor, and if you're not 100% familiar with the language you're writing in, you should probably have its docs handy anyway. The print function will bite you instantly, you'll know what's wrong as soon as you try to run it. Unicode strings, too, will usually throw a nice tidy exception. The only one that's going to really sting you is division, and it's so easy to deal with that one as you code (always use // for flooring). instance, how do we reload a module in 2.x... with, um, reload. This has always been the way... every book says so, and every one of us has re-invoked a .py file by using relaod. Reload doesn't even work on 3.x without an import. From what I gather, Python simply isn't designed with that sort of live reload in mind. Just terminate it and start over, it's easier. If you want a system where you reload parts of it without bringing things down, either build it manually (loading another piece of code, and maybe reassigning some state variables that have your functions), or pick a different language - Pike does this excellently. That's not an indictment of Python; it's simply that Python is not everything. Some of the posts here are referring to the two languages as partially incompatible reminds me of that line from Princess Bride... ... he's not dead, hes only mostly dead!... and mostly dead is partly alive! To say that 3.x is partly compatible with 2.x is silly, but to say that 3.x 'thinks' the same way as 2.x is almost pythonesque... I almost like that... Mostly compatible is still partly incompatible? Sure. But mostly compatible is Python 2.6.6 and Python 2.7.1, too. It's easy to write one codebase that runs under multiple Python versions; certainly it's a lot easier than writing one source file that's both Python and C, for instance. And the same lines of code will be doing the same work (unlike most polyglottisms, where one language's code is another language's comments). There is a subset of Python 2 that is also a subset of Python 3, and this intersection is quite large. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Steven D'Aprano wrote: A straw man is not when somebody points out holes in your argument, or unwanted implications that you didn't realise were there. It is when somebody makes claims on your behalf that you did not make to discredit you, not because you don't understand the implications of your own argument. The straw-man fallacy is when you erect a straw man to represent the actual man (or idea) which can be easily knocked down, and then you proceed to knock it down (the straw-man) as though the straw man was the actual man, or idea... proving your point as-it-were against your opponent when in fact you have only just knocked down the straw-man... leaving the real man standing. This fallacy has a couple of nuances (sometimes combined with metaphor or analogy fallacy) and you are a master at presenting both... thankfully you usually don't try to present both at the same time! :) In this present case the straw-man was not me, rather the straw-man was the python language itself. You chose a code-snippet (one small puny dangle that doesn't prove a thing) and used it to speak for the entire language! As though one code-block is enough to demonstrate compatibility for the entire language in all of its nuances and details. To prove something positive with a test case requires that you provide *all* test cases, or that you provide an algorithm that accounts for *all* test cases... you cannot prove compatibility with a code-snippet. On the other hand, all you have to do to prove incompatibility is to show one (1) test case where compatibility fails... and of course for the present case there are many that can be shown, in fact, hundreds of them. The thing that nobody has presented here yet is that *all* the books declare that 3.x is incompatible with 2.x/ ... some of them go out of their way to tell the reader that they are only going to deal with 3.x and not 2.x in any way... and others go out of their way to point out the hundreds of nuances in details between the two languages. (and a good thing too, for those of us who must work with both! ) So this fact is not alluding the press... the point being not to bust anybody in the chops, but to point out that it is not helpful to move the community forward with a new language and get mass adoption (not just early adopters) to lie about the differences between the two sets... yes, for trivial code blocks that use prime constructs, integer math, and the print statement, not much has changed. But in real world applications of the language there are many hundreds of details that have changed or been added (deleted) which will make life difficult for the uninitiated. Don't mislead people by saying that very little has changed. Tell them that the philosophy is the same (what Chris called python 'think' ) but be honest about the details of syntax, environment, layout, and morphology. kind regards, m harris kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 23:40, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: You have erected a straw-man... once again. I think that is a red herring, not a strawman. Most 2.x code *will not* run correctly in 3.x/ Most of the best improvements and enhancements of 3.x will not back-port to below 2.7, and almost none of them will back-port before 2.6 (class decorations, for instance). Although it is true that 2.x code will not run in a 3.x environment, the changes to the code are minimal. This would be akin to saying that a 2008 Peugeot 407 will not drive on a Canadian road because the license plate is a different shape. Just go an put a different plastic license plate holder on the Peugeot and it will run fine on the Canadian road. The changes to bring Python 2 code into Python 3 code are minimal, and it would be a terrific learning experience for the OP to go back and revise his old code to do just that. Furthermore, the OP is not just learning Python for the fun of learning Python. If that were the case, then I would agree that Python 3 is the way to go. The OP needs to use imaging libraries which may not yet work in Python 3 (I have not checked, but it is very likely that they do not). Therefore Python 3 is a non-starter in any case. -- Dotan Cohen http://gibberish.co.il http://what-is-what.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Colin J. Williams wrote: It would be safer to stick with Python 2.7 initially and then consider the transition to 3.2 later. I must disagree with Colin's statement. If you are a complete beginner with Python... then there is going to a learning curve for you... and that curve should be 3.2--- period. It is true that some modules are not ready for 3.x, and it is also true that many installed systems (probably most) do not have 3.x installed. But that is not the point. The point is that 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x (some call it a dialect, but that is a lie). Python3 is the future of the language, and if you're new to Python, then learn 3.x, move forward and don't look back... seriously. kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Fri, 27 May 2011 09:40:53 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x (some call it a dialect, but that is a lie). Completely incompatible? A lie? import math import random my_list = [3, 5, 7, 9] n = random.choice(my_list) if n%3: func = math.sin else: func = math.cos y = func(math.pi/n)*10 L = ['spam']*(int(y)) for item in L: print(item) is valid syntax in every version of Python from 1.5 to 3.2, and it does the same thing in all of them. Would you care to revise your claims? -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Steven D'Aprano wrote: Would you care to revise your claims? No. You have erected a straw-man... once again. Most 2.x code *will not* run correctly in 3.x/ Most of the best improvements and enhancements of 3.x will not back-port to below 2.7, and almost none of them will back-port before 2.6 (class decorations, for instance). Some interfaces have changed! cmp keyword, but lets not bring that up again Many syntaxes have changed or have disappeared... ... and some commands (like reload for instance) either don't exist in 3.x, or have been hidden, replaced, or changed... All of these things are for the better, I must add. But, the point is that 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x in real ways. Arguing that this is *not true* because you are able to create a code block that just happens 'to work' in all versions (and that hasn't been verified yet) does not in *any* way 'prove' that 3.x is a compatible dialect--- far from it... its a straw-man argument. kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Lew Schwartz wrote: So, if I read between the lines correctly, you recommend Python 3? Does the windows version install with a development environment? Dabo, last I checked, uses wxPython, which uses wxWidgets (sp?), which is not yet ported to Python 3. So if you got that route you'll need to stay with 2.7. ~Ethan~ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 6:40 AM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.net wrote: Most 2.x code *will not* run correctly in 3.x/ Most of the best improvements and enhancements of 3.x will not back-port to below 2.7, and almost none of them will back-port before 2.6 (class decorations, for instance). What's with the below 2.7? If you're comparing 3.x and 2.x, wouldn't it be most plausible to compare 3.2 and 2.7? And, the biggest reason for 2.x code not running on 3.x is probably the print function. (Guess made without any data beyond my own personal corpus of Python 2 code.) That's something that can be corrected by, oh, I dunno, the 2to3 translator maybe? And the __future__ import makes 2.6+ work the same way as 3.x. All of these things are for the better, I must add. But, the point is that 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x in real ways. Arguing that this is *not true* because you are able to create a code block that just happens 'to work' in all versions (and that hasn't been verified yet) does not in *any* way 'prove' that 3.x is a compatible dialect--- far from it... its a straw-man argument. You're correct that one code block does not prove the point. But your argument is just as flimsy. To say that most 2.x code is incompatible with 3.x is to deny the 2to3 utility, and you're ignoring the people who deliberately write code that can cross-execute on either version - which is really not that difficult, if you take some care and use __future__ directives. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Chris Angelico wrote: To say that most 2.x code is incompatible with 3.x is to deny the 2to3 utility, Oh, yes absolutely. Please don't misunderstand... anyone... I'm not saying that code cannot be migrated... migration can usually occur between incompatible releases and and between languages!... all I'm saying is that 3.x is not compatible with 2.x code (completely not compatible), and if you're a noob there is no reason to learn 2.x/ Learn 3.x and pickup whatever needs to be gained from 2.x if it comes up... we're talking about learning python as a newbie--- go with 3.x and never look back... seriously... and you're ignoring the people who deliberately write code that can cross-execute on either version - which is really not that difficult, That's what I do... but I'm not a newbie. I have existing code that needs to be migrated, and I have an interest in creating research apps that will run on existing 2.x systems but will be ready and waiting for the time when the system moves to 3.x. I need to know both 2.6 and 3.2 very well. And I'll be honest about this, it is very frustrating. There are literally hundreds of changes and variations (its all in the details). Many Pythonists are not honest about this... because they don't want to scare folks away from 3.x, and I don't really blame them. But the true picture is that 3.x is (way better) and completely incompatible with 2.x. Lying about this isn't helpful to anyone coming on board with Python. Just tell them the truth... kind regards, m harris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
harrismh777 wrote: Chris Angelico wrote: To say that most 2.x code is incompatible with 3.x is to deny the 2to3 utility, all I'm saying is that 3.x is not compatible with 2.x code (completely not compatible) and you're ignoring the people who deliberately write code that can cross-execute on either version - which is really not that difficult, That's what I do... Lying about this isn't helpful to anyone coming on board with Python. Just tell them the truth... Um -- how can you have on the one hand completely not compatible and on the other code that can cross-execute on either version? ~Ethan~ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 7:40 AM, harrismh777 harrismh...@charter.netwrote: Colin J. Williams wrote: It would be safer to stick with Python 2.7 initially and then consider the transition to 3.2 later. I must disagree with Colin's statement. If you are a complete beginner with Python... then there is going to a learning curve for you... and that curve should be 3.2--- period. I almost agree with this, but not quite: A newbie should start with 3.2, but regrettably fall back to 2.7 -=IF=- there's a necessary dependency that hasn't been updated for whatever project(s) they're working on. The point is that 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x (some call it a dialect, but that is a lie). Python3 is the future of the language, and if you're new to Python, then learn 3.x, move forward and don't look back... seriously. 3.x and 2.x are not that extremely incompatible. You usually can't just take 2.x code and run it, unmodified, on 3.x. However, there is a common subset that is pretty viable. EG: http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~dstromberg/backshift/ Backshift is a relatively substantial piece of code (4400 lines and counting), but it runs fine on CPython 2.x, CPython 3.x, PyPy and Jython (Jython just slightly post-2.5.2 - they aren't planning to cut a new release that's compatible, but it's in their SCM), without any help from 2to3 or 3to2. It was written from the start with the intent of being very portable. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Am 27.05.2011 17:52 schrieb Steven D'Aprano: On Fri, 27 May 2011 09:40:53 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: 3.x is completely incompatible with 2.x (some call it a dialect, but that is a lie). Completely incompatible? A lie? Hard word, but it is true. Many things can and will fall on your feet when moving. There are very many subtle differences. import math import random my_list = [3, 5, 7, 9] n = random.choice(my_list) if n%3: func = math.sin else: func = math.cos y = func(math.pi/n)*10 L = ['spam']*(int(y)) for item in L: print(item) is valid syntax in every version of Python from 1.5 to 3.2, and it does the same thing in all of them. C and C++ guys complain if these languages are intermixed. Even there it is possible to write a program which is valid in both of them. Nevertheless, they are two different languages. So are Py2 and Py3, IMHO. Thomas -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On Fri, 27 May 2011 20:02:39 -0500, harrismh777 wrote: But the true picture is that 3.x is (way better) and completely incompatible with 2.x. Lying about this isn't helpful to anyone coming on board with Python. Just tell them the truth... Take your own advice and stop accusing others of lying when it is you spreading falsehoods about Python 3. It is simply NOT TRUE that Python 3 is completely incompatible with Python 2. You keep making this accusation, but even the most cursory look at Python syntax, keywords, built-in objects, execution model, and standard library show that most things keep the same interface, and most of the remainder change in backward compatible ways. There are some backwards incompatibilities, but nearly all of them can be resolved by an automated fixer, no human intelligence required. Far from being completely incompatible, the truth is that Python 2.7 and 3.2 are more like 99% compatible. This is why there are 168 identical .py files in the Python 2.7 and 3.2a standard libraries. [steve@sylar ~]$ diff -rqbs --exclude=*.py[co] /usr/local/lib/ python2.7/ /usr/local/lib/python3.2/ | grep identical | grep \\.py | wc -l 168 Calling Python 2 and Python 3 different languages, as you have done, is simply wrong. Lisp and Python are different languages; Ruby and Python are different languages. Forth and Python are different languages. Python 2 and 3 are not. They are the same language that share nearly everything in common but have a few significant differences. Calling them completely incompatible is completely inaccurate. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
So, if I read between the lines correctly, you recommend Python 3? Does the windows version install with a development environment? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
Lew Schwartz wrote: So, if I read between the lines correctly, you recommend Python 3? Does the windows version install with a development environment? If you want to use python 3, make sure before that all the good stuff you need (==modules) have been ported to python 3. If you are a complete beginner, I would advise python 2.7. JM -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On 25-May-11 02:22 AM, Lew Schwartz wrote: So, if I read between the lines correctly, you recommend Python 3? Does the windows version install with a development environment? It would be safer to stick with Python 2.7 initially and then consider the transition to 3.2 later. No, there is not more than Idle. PyScripter provides an excellent development environment. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyScripter Colin W. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Beginner needs advice
On 05/24/2011 03:17 PM, Lew Schwartz wrote: Here's my background: I'm a Windows based Visual FoxPro developer, and I want to start programming in Python. I'll be sticking to Windows (XP 7) and my immediate needs are to manage display large groups of jpg's, tiff's etc... so I need form based graphics capable libraries (in addition to basic programming skills, of course). So Python 2 or 3? Add on packages/libraries? Tutorials? Thanks! -Lew If Visual Foxpro is your thing, maybe Dabo (www.dabodev.com) would be of interest to you. The developers are former Visual Foxpro programmers... -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
