Re: More recent Python version

[Andrew Bernard]

Hi Phil,

Many benefits. I just rewrote my recent flatten-ly tool in Python, more as an 
exercise than anything else. (Thinking vaguely that some people may find it 
more maintainable than Scheme. A foolish notion!). I used Python 2.7, oblivious 
of the fact that lilypond requires 2.4.5. So many things that one takes for 
granted in 2.7 are missing in 2.4.5 that I abandoned any notion of publishing a 
Python version, as I am not prepared to go back to a much less functional 
Python and rewrite half the program.

2.4.5 is very old now, and as with any system, there have been enormous strides 
forward in terms of bug fixes and improvements. Python 3 is also out, of 
course, and this is yet better, although the 2 series still has a strong 
following.

While accepting the dictum that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, this also has 
to be balanced with the idea that it eventually becomes necessary to trade in 
your car for a new one before it falls to bits. Since lilypond is under active 
development, apart from the issue of lack of human resources, it seems to make 
sense to me to have its componentry on an upgrade path as well.

Python 2.4.5 was released in 2008. That is now a considerably long time ago. I 
don’t think users would be happy to continue with a 2008 release of lilypond, 
by way of analogy.

Moving to Python 3 would be good. As wikipedia says:

Python 3.0 (also called "Python 3000" or "Py3K") was designed to rectify
 certain fundamental design flaws in the language (the changes required 
could not be implemented while retaining full backwards compatibility 
with the 2.x series, which necessitated a new major version number). The
 guiding principle of Python 3 was: "reduce feature duplication by 
removing old ways of doing things”.


Upgrading to a contemporary Python would. I think, also encourage more users to 
develop scripts and tools and so on.


Andrew






On 27/08/2015 18:20, "Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> wrote:

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Andrew Bernard" <address@hidden>
>To: <address@hidden>
>Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 12:44 AM
>Subject: More recent Python version
>
>
>I don't see why anyone would object to an upgrade.  What benefit does it 
>bring?