Python is one of the world's most popular programming languages. Development started in 1989, with (see this article for details):
Version 1.0 released in 1994,
Version 2.0 in 2000, and
Version 3.0 in 2008.
At the time of writing, the current version of Python is 3.12.2. In what year will Python 4 be released?
Due to challenges with sunsetting version 2 and migrating from version 2 to 3, many of the core developers (including Python's creator van Rossum) have expressed reticence about a version 4 release. However, since Python depends on C extensions, the need for a version 4 may eventually arise.
Does anything numbered 4 or larger count, or only something that's semantically incompatible with Python 3?
By way of example, if Python followed the example of several other pieces of software and said "the 3 is never changing, so let's call Python 3.16 just Python 16", how would that affect this market?
@burkh4rt I think this is a bit tricky because python doesn't actually follow semver. Python3 minor versions are intentionally backwards incompatible in small ways, e.g. by adding keywords and changing things in the stdlib. But major versions bumps are reserved for strongly incompatible changes according to https://devguide.python.org/developer-workflow/development-cycle/index.html.
@ducat Thanks for this correction -- I've removed the reference to semver from the market description. We're looking for the potential relsease date of Python major
version 4 in the major.minor.micro
release scheme (as opposed to semver's major.minor.patch
). I think this event is fairly well-defined, and I will not be betting in this market.