Stefan Schwarzer - Support Python 2 and 3 with the same code Your library supports only Python 2, - but your users keep nagging you about Python 3 support? As Python 3 gets adopted more and more, users ask for Python 3 support in existing libraries for Python 2. This talk mentions some approaches for giving users a Python 3 version, but will quickly focus on using the very same code for a Python 2 and a Python 3 version. This is much easier if you require Python 2.6 and up, and yet a bit easier if you require Python 3.3 as the minimum Python 3 version. The talk discusses main problems when supporting Python 3 (some are easily solved): * `print` is a function. * More Python APIs return iterators that used to return lists. * There's now a clear distinction between bytes and unicode (text) strings. * Files are opened as text by default, requiring an encoding to apply on reading and writing. The talk also explains some best practices: * Start with a good automatic test coverage. * Deal with many automatic conversions with a one-time 2to3 run. * Think about how your library should handle bytes and unicode strings. (Rule of thumb: Decode bytes as early as possible; encode unicode text as late as possible.) * Should you break compatibility with your existing Python 2 API? (Yes, if there's no other way to design a sane API for Python 2 and 3. If you do it, raise the first part of the version number.) * Try to keep code that's different for Python 2 and 3 minimal. Put code that needs to be different for Python 2 and 3 into a `compat` module. Or use third-party libraries like `six` or `future`. Finally, the talk will mention some helpful resources on the web.