Winning a bet about "six", the Python 2 compatibility shim
13 hours ago
- #Python
- #PyPI
- #six
- Andrey Petrov and the author made a bet five years ago about whether 'six' (a Python 2/3 compatibility shim) would remain in PyPI's top 20 daily downloads.
- The author won the bet as 'six' is currently #14 in daily downloads, down from #2 when the bet was placed.
- 96% of 'six' downloads come from Python 3 users, indicating it's mostly used as a dependency rather than directly.
- Top packages still depending on 'six' include python-dateutil (22M downloads/day), yandexcloud (6M), and azure-core (4M).
- The author credits python-dateutil's popularity for keeping 'six' in the top 20, as without it, they might have lost the bet.
- Some dependent packages haven't been updated in years, potentially explaining their continued reliance on 'six'.
- The post ends with a humorous quote from Andrey Petrov doubting 'six' would still be relevant in 10 years, and the author teasing 'We'll see!'