3: let go of Python 2 and move to Python 3 despite their concerns
Armin seems so disillusioned that I get the sense he'll either go for option 1 or 2, which is very concerning for people using Jinja2 and Flask and all his other stuff (most of which he has converted to Python 3 albeit unenthusiastically). He has said in one of his blog posts that although he has ported his code to Python 3, he does not use it himself at work and doesn't intend to. Having said that, his stance has softened significantly over the most recent 12 months as evidenced by the full porting of Flask to Python 3.
Zed I'm guessing initially go for option 1 and given his previous disposition to change technologies, might get sick of Python 2's deadness and go for option 2. Zed's public proclamations appear to have invested him quite heavily in not going with Python 3 so it's hard to see what would ever lead him there. Zed's "Learn Python the Hard Way" is the gateway through which new Python programmers are learning and thus all those new developers are starting out as Python 2 only people. If a way can be found to satisfy Zed that some future version of Python is "a good thing", then he will bring his students/followers with him.
But who knows.
It would be good if there was:
4: Zed and Armin and the other most vocal Python 2 advocates specify what they want to see in Python 4, somehow it gets included, everyone happy.
Zed and Armin are by no means the only first class Python developers there's tons of others, but they write really interesting stuff, they are extremely outspoken in their criticism of Python 3, and they have a large and loyal following who respect their opinions, so it would be nice to see them happily participating in Python's future.
What can be done to bring the Python 2 stayers to the most recent releases of Python? Who knows. It's not healthy for Python 3 to have such vocal critics so something should be done.
Even as the 2 versus 3 war continues, Python 3 seems to be gaining real momentum at least as measured by the number of libraries that are now available for Python 3 - it seems that even though some people are sticking with Python 2 there's a groundswell of support for Python 3. After all, for the ordinary programmer trying to get a website built, what's the point in learning the six year old version, all that leads to is the question of "ok, at what time will I learn Python 3?". I'm a beginner and a very ordinary programmer and I find Python 3 much easier to wrap my head around than Python 2 - I dread the times I have to dig into Python 2.
Python 3 will be fine. It has momentum, it will grow, eventually Python 2 will be so far in the past that there will be no way to look at it except in the same way we see OS/2, Amiga and DOS - long gone. It would be much better though if everyone was happy.
Python 4 (maybe it should be 3.6) should be the version that ends the civil war and gives the stayers what they want somehow.
