Python isn't a young language. Its history starts somewhere in the late 1980s and the official 1.0 release happened in year 1994. We could discuss the whole timeline of major Python releases mentioned here, but we really only need to be concerned about a few dates:

• October 16, 2000: official release of Python 2.0
• December 3, 2008: official release of Python 3.0
• November 9, 2011: announcement of Python 2.8 release un-schedule
• January 1, 2020: official sunsetting of Python 2

So, at the time of writing, Python 3 is almost half as old as Python itself. It has also been active for longer than Python 2 was when it comes to active development of new language features.

Although Python 3 has been around for quite some time, its adoption was so slow that the initial end of life for Python 2 was postponed by 5 years. It was mostly due to a lot of backward compatibility issues that didn't always allow...

We know that Python 2 is no longer officially supported by language developers. Due to the lack of security patches, it should be considered unsafe. But is it dead yet?

Probably not. Even relatively popular open-source libraries can lose the interest of their authors and contributors over time. It also happens that some better alternatives appear, and there's simply no point in developing the original library anymore. Such libraries are often left unmaintained, so no one could update them for compatibility with Python 3.

One of the important reasons why Python 3 couldn't take off for a long time was the sluggish release processes of many Linux distributions. Distribution maintainers often aren't inclined toward the fast adoption of new language versions, especially if these versions break backward compatibility and require patches of other software. Many Python programmers are Linux users, and if they don't have access to the latest...

Technology evolves constantly. People are constantly looking for tools that will allow them to solve their problems more easily than before. Every few months, either a completely new language pops up almost out of nowhere, or one of the well-established languages introduces a completely new syntax feature. This also happens to Python. We will briefly consider a few of the most important recent additions to the Python language in Chapter 3, New Things in Python.

New languages or language features drive the creation of novel libraries and frameworks. These in turn open the way for new programming paradigms and new design patterns. The success of one such pattern or paradigm in one language ecosystem often encourages programmers to adopt them in other languages. That's how new ideas spread from language to language.

We see that happening to Python too. We will be able to see how seemingly different programming languages share similar features or...

In this chapter, we've discussed the current status of Python and the process of change that is visible throughout the history of that language. We've learned why Python is changing and why it is important to follow that change.

Staying relevant is one of the biggest and most stressful challenges that professional programmers face regardless of the programming language they choose. Due to over 30 years of Python history and the ever-growing Python community, it isn't always clear how to efficiently stay up to date with the changes in the Python ecosystem. That's why we've looked into all the places where you can follow important discussions about Python's future.

What also changes together with the language are development tools that aim to ease and improve the software development processes. In the next chapter, we will continue with the topic of change and take a look at modern development environments. We will learn how to create repeatable...