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Python 2 vs Python 3

Published Nov 29 2020

One key topic to talk about, right from the start, is the Python 2 vs Python 3 discussion.

Python 3 was introduced in 2008, and it’s been in development as the main Python version, while Python 2 continued being maintained with bug fixes and security patches until early 2020.

On that date, Python 2 support was discontinued.

Many programs are still written using Python 2, and organizations still actively work on those, because the migration to Python 3 is not trivial and those programs would require a lot of work to upgrade those programs. And large and important migrations always introduce new bugs.

But new code, unless you have to adhere to rules set by your organization that forces Python 2, should always be written in Python 3.