There are two major versions of the Python programming language: the
Python 2.x series, and the newer Python 3.x series. The Python 3.x series
started with the release of Python 3.0 in December 2008; since that
time, Python 2.7 was released and has continued to receive point version
releases, with Python 2.7.9 being the latest version as of this writing.
As a footnote, there was, naturally, a Python 1.x series that was
highly successful in the 1990s, but that series has long been
out-of-maintenance.
In his 2014 PyCon keynote (Figure 1-1), Guido van Rossum, Python’s Benevolent Dictator for Life (sometimes affectionately called the BDFL or GvR) made it clear that the Python 2.x series will not continue past Python 2.7.x. The end-of-life for Python 2.7.x is 2020, and no new features will be added to the 2.x series of Python.
Within a series, Python places an especially strong philosophical
emphasis on backward compatibility (in comparison to many other
programming languages). It is extremely rare for a series to break
this backward compatibility in later minor versions; in the few cases
where it has occurred, it is only to address large previously
undiscovered bugs or security issues, and even then great attention is
paid to affecting as little running code as possible. That said, new
Python versions inevitably add important features, either in the
language itself, its built-in functions, or in standard library support
modules.
Figure 1-1. Guido van Rossum’s ...
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