Guido van Rossum recently started to blog about history of Python. Guido will write a series of articles, explaining how python was developed in the last 19 years (yes, time really flies – believe it or not, python is 19 years old). Python is today one of the most popular dynamic programming languages in the field with steadily growing community of new programmers. I’m looking forward to read the series of articles at History of Python.

Since Python 3.0 was released I’m regularly checking essential python packages that I currently use. And since I’m visiting more or less the same sites on a regular basis I decided to write down my list of packages that I use with the flag [python 3=Y, x86=Y|N, x64=Y|N] if there is at least support for Python 3 on Windows:

Essential packages:

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• Python interpreter [python 3.1=Y, x86=Y, x64=Y]
• Python Extensions for Windows [python 3.1, x86=Y, x64=Y]
• cx_Oracle [python 3.1=Y, x86=Y, x64=Y]
• PyQt4 – GPL version [python 3.1=Y, x86=Y, x64=N]
• Py2exe [python 3.1=N]

And some less often used modules:

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• cx_freeze [python 3.1=Y, x86=Y, x64=Y]
• matplotlib
• MySQL for Python
• ActiveState recipe – Colorize Python source [N/A]
• ReportLab Toolkit (pdf library)

[Note: Last update on February 16, 2010]

Production version of Python 3.0 was released yesterday. It’s a major release that is not compatible with 2.x code. I think it’s a good news for the prospect of the language — it’s better to remove (and replace with something better) some annoyances in the language once for ever. It also means we’ll have to unlearn some things as well as learn some new stuff.

For the start I read Guido van Rossum article about changes: What’s New In Python 3.0.

Other resources I will have to check out while migrating my python scripts from 2.x to 3:

• PEP 3108 – Standard Library Reorganization
• 2to3 – Automated Python 2 to 3 code translation
• Python 3 Documentation

I’ll be watching for a release of third party modules for Python 3, such as cx_Oracle, win32all and Qt and only then I’ll start porting python scripts to Python 3. I guess it’ll take a year, perhaps even more for all third party modules to catch up with Python 3 release.