Python is more than just a programming language. It is the top preference of developers, fundamental to machine learning along with many other things. When Guido van Rossum created Python in the 1990s, he seldom knew that his creation would gain so much popularity worldwide. And turn out to be the most widely used programming language one day. Be it the flexibility of language, open-source nature, or ease of understanding. Python is the developer’s favorite for more than one reason.
Python’s Year 2019
Taking a look back at the year, 2019 has been Python’s year in many ways. To begin with, it beat JAVA to become the world’s most popular programming language as per the IEEE top programming languages rakings. Another reason why Python made news this year was that version 2 is at its end of life. Python 2 is retiring as we step into, the New Year on January 1, 2020. From this day forward there will be no further updates released to Python 2, and there will be no security fixes even if someone finds a security issue with it.
With half a month left for the year to end, organizations must do something if they want their applications to stay relevant. But, even though Python 2 retirement was announced way back in 2014, most organizations are still hooked on it and never moved to the latest version. And there are many reasons why this has happened. When Guido Van Rossum first announced back in 2014 that Python version 2 was coming to an end, 2020 felt quite distant. Most enterprises postponed the migration to Python 3, some didn’t like the new update, while others just faced more than a few challenges in migration.
Resistance to Python 3
Python 3 faced an enormous amount of resistance from developers and enterprises all across the world. These were mainly because of the following reasons:
- Python 3 had only one intuitive way of doing things as compared to Python 2, where developers could accomplish a task in more than one way.
- The sub-par performance of Python 3 was disliked.
- Python 3 had an initial lack of support for third-party tools and libraries.
- There were a few backward compatibility issues with Python 3 etc.
Even though Python 3 was launched in 2008, it was hard for the Python Software Foundation to convince people to migrate to this version. But, seldom did they notice that the new version was the language’s way to keep the evolution running forward. Python 3 along with a bunch of new features, had major fixes to Python 2.
Watching not many organizations migrate to Python 3, Guido Van Rossum rang the alarm bell in March this year. He pointed out that there must be no games played with the semantics. The situation with Python 2.7 was clear as from January 1, 2020, there would be no updates, not even source-only security patches. In other words, support from the core devs, PSF and Python.org would cease to exist.
Is it a Do or Die Situation?
No matter how much you admire Python 2, as an organization, you will have to migrate to Python 3, either today or tomorrow. It is a do-or-die situation until you take a step in that direction. If you haven’t done anything to date to move your applications to Python 3, here are a few hacks you can try:
Start the Transition
While it may seem like a complex task, migrating to Python 3 is easier than the hype surrounding it. The best part is that Python’s official documentation has everything you need to know to make the transition successfully. For starters, you can use the ‘caniusepython3’ package to help identify areas in your application that might block porting to Python 3.
Analyze Closely
The sooner you accept the migration to Python 3, the better you will be able to implement the actual process. Start by analyzing your application and finding the smallest areas that have their dependencies on Python 2. Once you identify these, find compatible solutions to Python 3 and start rebuilding your application inside out. One of the biggest myths is that Python 3 is not backward compatible. It wasn’t in its initial days, but now that the migration problem is much better understood by experts. And Python Software Foundation itself, migrating to Python 3 is easier than ever.
Purchase Support from Third-Party Vendors
In case you want to stick to Python 3 for a longer period. You can simply purchase the extended support from third-party vendors. For example, Active State is a third-party vendor that offers commercial support to enterprises and developers who want to continue using Python 2. Alternatively, users can also buy products that have Python 2 as part of their presence in another supported product.
Third-Party Runtimes
As a temporary solution, you can also switch to a different runtime for Python 2. Third-party runtimes like Cython, Tauthon, PyPy, and IronPython offer an extended support window for the version, giving you some more time to prep up for Python 3.
Conclusion
Whether you like it or not, Python 3 is here as part of the next-generation Python software development. Choosing to stay with Python 2 is ultimately your choice, but you will be putting far more effort into its maintenance. Then innovate your application and understand the demands of your customer. You can try these temporary solutions to buy yourself some time and start preparing for the transition as soon as possible. Sailing with technological advancements is the only way forward!
