Python 2 End of Life 2020

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Jay Kyburz

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Apr 17, 2015, 12:19:38 AM4/17/15
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Hello Googlers, 

There is an interesting discussion today on Hacker News about how Debian has started moving from P2 to P3 because of the looming EOL deadline in 2020. 

Does anybody know if there are plans in the works to provide a Python 3 implementation of App Engine I can port my apps to sometime in the next 5 years.  I've been searching around but can find nothing. 

5 years may sound like a long time to many of you, but the last 5 years of using App Engine have seemed to fly by for me. 

I have a lot of code to port and it might be a biggish job. 

If Google is looking for more staff to handle the port I would be happy to contribute.

Jay.

Kaan Soral

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Apr 18, 2015, 3:03:08 AM4/18/15
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Interesting

But there is no indication that AppEngine is going to abandon Python 2 at 2020?

Jeff Schnitzer

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Apr 18, 2015, 5:19:54 AM4/18/15
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You can run Python3 already with Managed VMs, although the experience today does not compare favorably to traditional GAE. I suspect the best course of action is to file usability bugs against managed VMs until they work as well or better than what you're used to. More specific is better.

Jeff

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Jay Kyburz

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Apr 18, 2015, 7:18:48 AM4/18/15
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A port to a managed VM is a whole nother kettle of fish. If I do that I'm managing my own servers and might as well move anywhere. 

The simple fact is that 2.7 is on the way out, and if I want to continue to work in Python, I need a 5 year plan that has me port my applications to Python 3. 

My question to Google is, will I be working on App Engine, or do I have to go find another solution. 

troberti

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Apr 20, 2015, 3:51:27 AM4/20/15
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Exactly. Managed VMs are great for some applications, but not a replacement for the managed runtimes. The idea of App Engine is simplicity & zero-configuration (or at least as close to it as possible). Instead, Managed VMs seem to throw a lot of that back on the user's lap. I don't want to 'dockerize' my apps and start managing my own runtimes. 

The Python 2 to 3 transitions is great example where a public roadmap would be very useful. They could state they'll have a Python 3 runtime ready in 2017 and then have a 3 year transition period and stop the Python 2 runtime in 2020.

Karl MacMillan

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Apr 20, 2015, 11:50:37 AM4/20/15
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On Apr 20, 2015, at 3:51 AM, troberti <tij...@firigames.com> wrote:

Exactly. Managed VMs are great for some applications, but not a replacement for the managed runtimes. The idea of App Engine is simplicity & zero-configuration (or at least as close to it as possible). Instead, Managed VMs seem to throw a lot of that back on the user's lap. I don't want to 'dockerize' my apps and start managing my own runtimes. 


I completely agree. I’ve seen many comments suggesting that managed VMs are a viable alternative to traditional GAE, but this is not the case at all for me. The docker tooling on OS X (my dev environment) is pretty awful, the same set of services aren’t available in App Engine and Managed VMs, and basically I want the zero config of App Engine.

This isn’t a lack of knowledge - I have a lot of experience managing servers - it’s that I’ve got other more important things to do with my time.

The Python 2 to 3 transitions is great example where a public roadmap would be very useful. They could state they'll have a Python 3 runtime ready in 2017 and then have a 3 year transition period and stop the Python 2 runtime in 2020.


+1

Karl

Jeff Schnitzer

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Apr 20, 2015, 12:33:37 PM4/20/15
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I agree with all of you - the Managed VM experience kinda sucks right now compared to what we're used to. Google will have an easier time making it better if we file bugs against it the usability issues.

Jeff

Andrew Jessup

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Apr 22, 2015, 12:50:14 AM4/22/15
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Hey folks, a PM on App Engine here. 

The Python 3 question has been top of mind for us - since it's clearly the future for Python development, and has recently reached a tipping point in terms of usage. We're not sure at this stage if the best way forward is with Managed VMs or regular App Engine, and we have a few experiments in flight right now to figure that out.

What I'm hearing on this thread though is that whatever the Python 3 solution is, it needs to be a lot simpler and less cumbersome than the Managed VMs experience today, and we agree. We have some parallel work in flight to dramatically simplify the working with Managed VMs (especially around the toolchain) and managing applications that we hope to be able to talk more about soon.

I'd also second Jeff's point above about filing bugs on the usability of Managed VMs (or even better, star a bug that already exists - generally a highly starred bug will get worked on quicker than lots of bugs about the same issue with only a few stars).


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troberti

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Apr 22, 2015, 4:31:51 AM4/22/15
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Thanks for your reply Andrew. This confirms my impression that managed VMs are becoming the default 'solution' for things that App Engine can't currently do. I understand you can't support every language out there, but I want to stress that there should be runtimes that deliver on the core premise of App Engine: Providing a service and a set of APIs, and when I create a program using those APIs, App Engine keeps it running for decades and takes care of *everything* else. That is a very compelling product.

I haven't filed any issues against the usability of managed VMs because setting one up is too much work already. If a 10 step guide is needed to get up and running then that is against the spirit of App Engine. There should only be one step: I provide a program and minimal metadata and you guys take care of everything else. If there is an issue for that I'll star it ;)

The steps towards "VM-ization" of instances is a good one if it is used to remove some of the restrictions on programs that we can run, but not if it used to put more maintenance burden on the user. The point of App Engine is that the service takes care of all that. That's why the runtime/API boundary is the right one: The user maintains the program and App Engine everything else.
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Adam Sah

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Apr 22, 2015, 3:14:52 PM4/22/15
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+1 to this comment.  Managed VMs don't replace the sysadmin simplicity of appengine, incl automatic OS security upgrades.

Emlyn

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Jun 1, 2015, 11:29:26 PM6/1/15
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+1 from me too. Managed VMs mean I'm a sysadmin; nooo! If I wanted
that I'd be using AWS like a peasant.
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