speedtest-cli stopped working today?

[Liam Proven]

On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 12:49, Peter Flynn <peter at silmaril.ie> wrote:

> Under a fresh default Mint 20.1, it turns out I have no Python at all!

Very surprising indeed. However, I just gave away my 2 Mint machines
and so can't check.

> So I started with sudo apt install python

I am not a Pythonist but I _think_ that will install Python 2, which
is now past end-of-life. I think you should remove it again, and
instead, do:

sudo apt install python3

Python 2.x is dead now and Python 3 is _not_ backwards-compatible. So
distros must keep the old package around as some things need it. That
is why there are 2 packages, and why `python` was not renamed when
Python 3 came out: because it is not a compatible replacement. If the
`python` package were renamed `python2` and the new v3 called `python`
then old software might install the wrong version in error, from
scripts/configs which worked fine before the rename. Thus, the old
name was kept and a new package added.

It is not Mint's, Ubuntu's or Debian's fault; they did the right
thing. It is really the Python community's fault when they decided to
break backwards-compatibility. Although the language is still very
popular (to quote Douglas Adams) "this made a lot of people very angry
and was widely regarded as a bad move".

It's one reason Javascript has thrived in recent years -- because a
lot of people were disappointed in Python, didn't like the changes,
felt abandoned or let down, etc.

Cf. Perl. Perl 6 was delayed by _decades_ (yes really) and again is
not backwards-compatible with Perl 5. This stifled Perl development
for decades. When Perl 6 finally appeared, few people cared any more.
Now it has changed its name and the Perl 5 community are developing a
new successor language.

This is a common problem with FOSS projects: when your cool new idea
breaks compatibility, it fragments the community. Some people stay
with the old version, maybe even fork it, and the new one ends up
stunted, or a rival takes over.

Examples:
* XFree86 → X.org
* KDE 3 & 4 still exist as forks although 5 is current
* GNOME 2 still exists as a fork although 3 is current
    * Now GNOME v4 has been renamed 3.40 so as not to scare away more people
* GNOME 3 has been forked at least twice: to create Consort (now dead)
& Cinnamon (very much alive)
* PHP 6 alienated so many PHP users that it was abandoned and PHP 5
became the basis of PHP 7

Many years ago, WinAmp 3 alienated so many WinAmp users that WinAmp 2
refused to die. In the end, Nullsoft, the WinAmp developers, did
something uncommonly sensible: they created a new version, called
WinAmp 5 (because 2+3=5) which retained backwards-compatibility with
WinAmp 2 skins etc., but re-introduced the changes and improvements of
v3. IMHO Python should have done the same.)



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