Tidying up Python

[raf]

Please ignore this. It's only python-related, not macports-related.

On Mon, Jul 14, 2025 at 09:34:09AM +0200, Bjarne D Mathiesen via macports-users <macports-users at lists.macports.org> wrote:

> Den 13.07.2025 kl. 17.12 skrev Bill Cole:
> > On 2025-07-11 at 20:14:29 UTC-0400 (Sat, 12 Jul 2025 10:14:29 +1000)
> > raf via macports-users <macports at raf.org>
> > is rumored to have said:
> > 
> > [...]
> >>
> >> It might be officially dead, but it's unofficially undead.
> >> I know of a python2/wxPython program that still can't easily
> >> be ported to python3
> > 
> > One of the most prominent examples of this is the GNU Mailman v2 mailing
> > list manager. It has been "undead" for many years despite Mailman v3
> > existing and running on Python 3.
> > 
> > Porting to Python3 from Python2 is a non-trivial task, particularly if a
> > program needs to handle text in multiple encodings. Many programs never
> > made the change, despite having a long time to do so.
> > 
> 
> The primary problem is UTF-8, which in Python2 is an afterthought; but
> is fully integrated in Python3. How one defines a string has been
> fundamentally changed between Python2 & Python3.

I disagree that it was an "afterthought". It was a thought.
There are many many encodings and Python2 handled encodings
just fine. It just didn't assume that UTF-8 is the default
encoding (or didn't treat it as the dominant/only encoding,
which it isn't in some parts of the world, probably just
China, but still, that's a big part of the world).

> Having old, but working, legacy stuff around is a ⏳&💸 problem.

By definition, it's only a problem if it doesn't work.
The way that encoding is handled changed between python2
and python3, but that doesn't mean that python2 code couldn't
be written to handle encoding correctly. Of course it could.

> Just see
> the situation w/ 🏦 and all their ‼️still existing‼️ COBOL & APL
> infrastructure 😱🤓. I've been to recent job conventions, where they
> were looking for 🤓 willing to cross over to these ...

That's a separate issue.
I assume there's gold in them thar hills. :-)
For those that want some gold. :-)

> -- 
> Bjarne D Mathiesen
> Slagelse ; Danmark ; Europa
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> denne besked er skrevet i et totalt M$-frit miljø
> MacPro 2010 5.1 ; OpenCore + macOS 14.7.6 Sonoma
> 2 x 3,46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon ; 192 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC RDIMM
> ATI Radeon RX 590 8 GB

cheers,
raf