Python Software Foundation survey finds that a significant number of Python developers are still using Python 2 for data analysis, computer graphics, and devops.
Python’s public API changes subtly, so minor changes in Python version can lead to massive changes in the version of dependencies you use.
A few years ago we developed a script to update Cassandra on Python 2.7.Y. Production environment used Python 2.7.X (it was 5 patch releases earlier).
This completely changed the cassandra library version. We had to go back 15 patch releases which annoying resulting in a breaking change in the Cassandra libraries API and wouldn’t work on the dev environments Python.
Python 3 hasn’t solved this, 2 years ago I was asked to look at a number of Machine Learning projects running in docker. Upgrading Python from 3.4 to 3.8 had a huge effect on dependencies and figuring out the right combination was a huge pain.
This is a solved problem in Java, Node.js has the same weakness but their changes to language spec are additive so old code runs on new releases (just not the inverse). Ruby has exactly the same issues as Python
I swear it’s just as frustrating as Minecraft modding and picking the right forge version for all the mods you want. And OF COURSE your 2 favorite mods aren’t on the same version so you can’t use them together. I’m legit learning to mod Minecraft just so I can port them myself.
Java has had some breaking changes, especially the move to Jakarta namespace for certain dependencies, (thanks Oracle trademark enforcement) but I have had other code taken from 9 to 19 with no changes at all. I have some dependencies that I haven’t recompiled since 6 which still work in 19.
Now dependency dependencies, yeah that can get tricky to get them all the right version.
Python’s public API changes subtly, so minor changes in Python version can lead to massive changes in the version of dependencies you use.
A few years ago we developed a script to update Cassandra on Python 2.7.Y. Production environment used Python 2.7.X (it was 5 patch releases earlier).
This completely changed the cassandra library version. We had to go back 15 patch releases which annoying resulting in a breaking change in the Cassandra libraries API and wouldn’t work on the dev environments Python.
Python 3 hasn’t solved this, 2 years ago I was asked to look at a number of Machine Learning projects running in docker. Upgrading Python from 3.4 to 3.8 had a huge effect on dependencies and figuring out the right combination was a huge pain.
This is a solved problem in Java, Node.js has the same weakness but their changes to language spec are additive so old code runs on new releases (just not the inverse). Ruby has exactly the same issues as Python
I swear it’s just as frustrating as Minecraft modding and picking the right forge version for all the mods you want. And OF COURSE your 2 favorite mods aren’t on the same version so you can’t use them together. I’m legit learning to mod Minecraft just so I can port them myself.
I very much doubt that you can run old code unchanged on newer Java versions. Especially not without dependency updates
This problem is not exclusive to Python
Java has had some breaking changes, especially the move to Jakarta namespace for certain dependencies, (thanks Oracle trademark enforcement) but I have had other code taken from 9 to 19 with no changes at all. I have some dependencies that I haven’t recompiled since 6 which still work in 19.
Now dependency dependencies, yeah that can get tricky to get them all the right version.