When The __future__ Becomes The Present; Dropping Python 2 Support In A Commercial Client

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS3CmWgFNdA
Note: This was a sponsored talk so is a bit more Nexmo focused than my usual talks

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Nexmo recently decided to refactor our Python client library to be Python 3-only. Learn why we made this decision, the advantages (and disadvantages) that come along with it, and how we’re monitoring and helping our users with the migration.

Since Python 3.4, Python has jumped forward, adding many features that are not available in Python 2.7. Maintaining Python 2 compatibility means either avoiding these new language features or using backport libraries that provide an approximation. Neither provided the best experience for our users.

In this talk, we’ll also discuss how we support users of our legacy library, the benefits that the new library offers, and our experience of developing a customer-facing Python library with the latest Python language and core library.

Transcript

2. @judy2k
3. @aaronbassett
4. @NexmoDev
5. @NexmoDev
6. @NexmoDev
7. @NexmoDev
8. Not Pythonic @NexmoDev
10. __Private_not_Private @NexmoDev
11. File structure @NexmoDev
12. JWT @NexmoDev
13. @NexmoDev
14. Keyword only Arguments @NexmoDev
15. Type hints @NexmoDev
16. Path Lib Enum etc @NexmoDev
17. ASYNC @NexmoDev
18. @NexmoDev
19. @NexmoDev
20. @NexmoDev
21. @NexmoDev
22. @NexmoDev
23. Lift Off @NexmoDev
24. @NexmoDev
25. I don’t want to have to upgrade @NexmoDev
26. Why not support both?? @NexmoDev
27. But I pay your wages!!!! @NexmoDev
28. But my BOFH won’t install Python 3 @NexmoDev
29. @NexmoDev
30. Python client 1.x LTS version No new endpoints Bug / security fixes only @NexmoDev
31. Set an EOL date @NexmoDev
32. Notify users (well in advance) Blog / Twitter / Email Shout it from the rooftops! @NexmoDev
33. Deprecation Warning @NexmoDev “Warning messages are typically issued in situations where it is useful to alert the user of some condition in a program, where that condition (normally) doesn’t warrant raising an exception and terminating the program. For example, one might want to issue a warning when a program uses an obsolete module.”
34. Dealing with holdouts @NexmoDev
35. @NexmoDev
36. Respect user's time, make it easy to upgrade Keeping DRY with code generation Add support for sync and async Adopt latest best practices @NexmoDev
37. @NexmoDev
41. Still WIP (but it’s on GitHub @NexmoDev nexmo/nexmo-python)
42. @NexmoDev