Over at On the Edge, Greg Black has written an article explaining why he's dumping Python.

No, it isn't for Ruby, this time it's for AWK.While I can understand Greg's complaint about changing (even undocumented) behaviour of a standard library function in an incompatible way, Greg's conclusion fails to convince me that this was anything more than a tantrum. To be fair, I have tantrums all the time about software, so I can sympathize. However, Greg also wrote a follow-up article clarifying and solidifying his stance. This takes it beyond a tantrum (which tends to be a temporary thing that you get over rather quickly) into the realm of actual opinion. Therefore I feel compelled to address this opinion with some of my own.

What I found most striking is the deep and fundamental contradiction plainly visible in Greg's stance:

Greg wants to use a dead language, but Python 2.3 isn't going to cut it. Why not? Python 2.3 is certainly as dead as Awk by any measure. If Greg wants an unchanging Python he's found it and yet still complains. This is what I find contradictory. He wants both a living language (i.e. one that is updated) and a dead language (one that doesn't have changes). He's even stumbled upon the perfect solution (locking to 2.3), but is now heart-set upon finding some mythical language that never breaks backwards compatibility (don't try Ruby Greg! They can't even get a book out the door before it's obsolete) but still ships new versions that anyone cares about.

To further the irony, I've taken the title of this article directly from Greg's page where it's presented as some sort of motto above a picture of a BMW taking a corner on two wheels. Apparently life-or-death for a thrill is okay by Greg, but changing some parameters (or filing a bug report) in exchange for a cleaner library or language is a bit too "on the edge."

Go figure.