[Zope3-dev] Re: What does python 3000 mean for zope?

[Laurence Rowe]

Hermann Himmelbauer wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 2. September 2007 08:18 schrieb Andreas Jung:
>> --On 1. September 2007 16:21:23 -0400 Stephan Richter
>>
>> <srichter at cosmos.phy.tufts.edu> wrote:
>>> On Saturday 01 September 2007 15:33, Martijn Faassen wrote:
>>>> I think Zope will be on Python 2.x for many years to come.
>>> I really hope not. A friend of mine and I want to get a bit involved in
>>> Python  3000 once it is stable enough that the standard libs can get some
>>> attention.  At this point I really want to have an initial look at
>>> porting Zope 3  packages to Python 3. I really hope we can move to Python
>>> 3 in a reasonable  amount of time.
>> What are the major benefits from moving to Python 3? The major and most
>> important change I see in Py3K is the string-as-unicode implementation.
>> That's a big advantage. However everything else is in some way syntactical
>> sugar. Py3k still won't run on multiple CPUs, it still uses the GIL...
>> improvements in this area would be arguments for me to move to Py3K.
>> Only speaking for my self, I don't see major improvements that would my
>> daily Python experience significantly.
> 
> I personally have the same impression. The string-as-unicode implementation is 
> a real advantage, moreover I also like many of the syntactic changes. What I 
> would like to see, however, is a native implementation of interfaces, which 
> seems not really to be the case.
> 
> Moreover, as you stated above, Python 3 will still use the GIL, which is a 
> shame, as it's still a "uni-processor language". This should be the #1 
> problem to be addressed, as multi-processor systems are now coming up so 
> fast, however, it seems this is postponed to Python 4000. :-(
> 
> That's the real problem I see, as in ~ 4 years 8-core systems may be standard 
> and Python 2/3 will only be capable of using 1/8 of the processing power.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Hermann
> 

Zope's solution to this (multiple processes, ZEO) seems eminently 
sensible, it's a lot less hard on the brain than multithreading and it 
works now.

Laurence