[Info-vax] Python on VMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/17/2019 1:07 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2019-01-17 17:36:23 +0000, Arne Vajhj said:
>> On 1/17/2019 11:17 AM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>>> Upward-compatibility is most definitely very desirable and very 
>>> important.  But in very specific and selective cases, app 
>>> compatibility has to be broken to make forward progress.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> And many are relative good at doing that.
>>
>> But I don't think Python fall in that category. Changing the meaning 
>> of the / operator and changing print from keyword to function does not 
>> seem to have been really needed the same way as VMS need longer 
>> password hash.
> 
> Whether or not what the Python folks chose and did here is what you'd 
> choose and do might be interesting discussions, but breaking changes are 
> what happened here.  We have what we have.
> 
> Which means that Python users either port our code forward, or we port 
> our Python code elsewhere, or we fork the whole Python project and pick 
> up ongoing support for Python 2, or—and this is the classic OpenVMS 
> approach—we decide stay on the old version until forced into a decision.

Given the size of the Python world and the size of the VMS world, then
the VMS world will have to follow the Python world and go to 3.x.

Assuming we will have Python. Which I think we should. One way or another.

Arne