> If he were spending his time actually trying to fix the problems
Let's assume he doesn't have the time or energy to dive into the Python 3 source and then learn the rules for contributions.
Then all he can do is list the problems he has with Python 3. Which he has done.
It seems like the Python 3 community is too defensive. Bad string error message seem to be a longstanding grip. They should focus on improving that instead of complaining about Zed's opinions.
Nonsense. There's plenty he could do other than "list problems". There's in fact a ton more that hundreds, even thousands have done than him for Python 3 specifically and Python in general. He, of all people, would be able to help a huge amount if he put his mind to it.
But I'm not here to tell him what to do. My problem is that his attitude is actively harmful to the python community. It's creating divisiveness where there isn't any. Take a look at most libraries: they're 2+3 compatible. Very few are 3-only, because the Python community at large understands how widespread 2 is for existing users, and how useful 3 is for new users.
No shit the community's defensive, he's literally painting a large part of it as "angry lonely coders" and "abusive previous generation".
No shit they complain about Zed's opinions, a lot of developers learned Python with his book. I'm a child of Dive Into Python, but I can attest that you feel emotionally attached to what taught you the language you love.
His attitude is the problem. As for "improving Python 3", I don't know if you noticed but there's been 5 major releases of 3.x since the initial one, with a 6th one approaching. Each and every one of them has improved backwards compatibility and the python 3 rough edges.
There may probably be a lot of things he could do to help Python but why is listing problems any less useful?
He says he gave it a try many times, too, so it's not just blind criticism.
I don't like how he disregards the opinions of communities and how he validates his, but that doesn't mean he totally wrong about the problems of Python 3.
Let's assume he doesn't have the time or energy to dive into the Python 3 source and then learn the rules for contributions.
Then all he can do is list the problems he has with Python 3. Which he has done.
It seems like the Python 3 community is too defensive. Bad string error message seem to be a longstanding grip. They should focus on improving that instead of complaining about Zed's opinions.