Python 2 vs Python 3

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, 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 would require a lot of work to upgrade those programs. And large and important migrations always introduce new bugs.

So, you might happen to have to work on Python 2 codebases. This is not the book to start with, then.

But new code, unless you have to adhere to rules set by your organization that forces Python 2 or one of the libraries you must use is not upgraded to Python 3, should always be written in Python 3.

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