Entries published on May 5, 2020
Variations on the Death of Python 2
On April 20th, 2020, a release manager named Benjamin Peterson smashed the “publish” button on Python 2.7.18.
The Python 2 release series reached the end of its upstream support from the Python core team at the start of the year. I don’t know for certain, but I assumed the timing of the actual final package was meant to occur during PyCon (which, until a global pandemic struck, was scheduled for mid-April), possibly so there could be some sort of nice ceremony to mark the occasion.
At any rate, Python 2 is done, at least from the Python core team’s perspective. While operating-system vendors (who work on different cycles) will be supporting Python 2 packages for a while yet, and some other community projects claim they’ll continue to support Python 2 interpreters for an indefinite period, the mainstream of Python development has now, finally, moved on. Popular libraries and frameworks mostly …