Comment by tolmasky

As someone who does not use Python, the end result of this is that I now look into whether random utilities I use happen to be written in Python, and if so try to find an alternative. This is because I felt the pain of this transition -- again, as someone who does not program in Python. It has been miserable every time some random utility starts complaining that Python 3 is missing and then somehow when you install it something else that wants Python 2 starts complaining. You have containers that have worked for years that all of a sudden error out saying "Python 2 is no longer supported," and you have to dig up whatever library or utility that would otherwise work fine has some sort of date-based check or something? I don't know, all I know is a compiled C++ thing works the same yesterday as it does today, and I can upgrade on my timeline, not have a random Docker layer cache invalidation result in a week's worth of Python 3 migration in the least important part of my build. And it keeps happening, again, because this is not in stuff I directly edit, it's all in random dependencies and sub-utilities of utilities I install. So it is non-trivial to even go in with the mindset of "I will update everything on our systems that use Python". Although I guess if it's being pulled completely now that job will once again be done for me. Sigh.

I have this opinion about no other language. I am generally neutral about languages I don't use. But literally my only experience with Python is porting to Python 3. It's like a sitcom scenario of how to force the worst possible first impression for a language ever. The amount of slowdown and pain that Python 3 has generated on our non-Python project is really just out of this world ridiculous.