Python 3.0 arrives in early 2009. Changes & Additions For Version 3.0?

ITNews has reported that the Python development community is working towards a new, backwards incompatible version of the language, version 3.0, which is slated for release in early 2009. “We are going to break pretty much all the code. Pretty much every program will need changes,” said Anthony Baxter, release manager for Python and a senior software engineer at Google Australia. Any extension modules, including proprietary vendor ones, will also need to be rewritten.

Python 3.0 will be the first version to break backwards compatibility. The program developers, led by language creator Guido Van Rossum, had elected to rewrite the language to remove accumulated “cruft”, to simplify the language to make it easier to teach and use.

3.0 will solve a number of problems including the current “shambles” when mixing unicode and non-unicode strings in the current version of the language, said Baxter.

What features and changes do you think are a must have for Python version 3.0?

Reference – ITNews