Hello ERPNext and users,
as a Python, Frappé and ERPNext beginner, I was wondering, why you did not use Python 3 for developing those great framework and apps. Is there any reason?
Kind regards
Christoph
1 Like
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will indeed drop python2 as the default version. (it will still be available but not by default)
I can’t. It’s just about learning more about Frappé and their decisions. There are some features in Python3, which look nice, but I do not think there is something, what Python 2.x can’t do.
The point that Ubuntu will be dropping python2 as default version, which @Francois_Ifitwala already mentioned, is interesting though.
@ci2016, frappe is made in Python 2, because this project started in 2005, and is Open Source since 2008, so, in 2005, the active python version was 2.3, since this, frappe increased a lot of resources and 3rd party libs, currently I believe that the team, is focused in reduce the number of active issues, instead of look for changes to will afect directly the number of issues.
Maybe in the future, Python 3 will be included naturaly in the project!
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@ci2016 yeah we could do Python3, its just going to be a great hassle getting everyone to upgrade.
We expect users to keep upgrading regularly, so this might have to be a major release. We will need to install a new python, spawn new ENVs for benches and get only Python3 compliant libraries.
CC @pdvyas
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@ci2016 you will see as you continue your journey in the Python world that Python3 or Python27 seems to be almost a religious question. The leadership of Python endorses Python3 while the community is still stuck in 2.7.
From what I can tell in most cases it’s the “never touch a running system” principle and its not assured that all the third party packages Frappe uses will work with Python3.
I am sure Python3 will have to happen some time, also for ERPNext and Frappe 
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Butting in,
Porting might take a month of effort if not more and would result in zero new features. The Python2 end of life has got an extension and we should do it before 2020, peps: 76d43e52d978
This project should be on the foundation’s list, along with PostgreSQL migration.
@rmehta, upgrading should be manageable, we did it in the past with Python2.7 with lesser control of the environment. We have bench with virtualenv now 
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Python3.6 is a major release. It has lot of improvements. A dictionary object that will take 300kb in Python2.7 will now take only 100 kb in Python3.6. So there is 200% memory reduction.
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Also, Security. Python dicts < 3.4 actually have a real security issue.
A group of researchers were able to block the server cpu for 7 minutes straight.
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Unicode support in python3 is what we are seeing as a desirable feature.
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@JasonBrowne , python 2 already supports unicode, and as a Portuguese native speaker, I use the interface and input data into ERPNext without any kind of problem, using utf-8 (unicode)
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Yes, but it has to be implemented, in Python 3 it’s native.
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@dfermiumlabs, I dont will aprofundate too much about that discussion, but before python3 existence, how do you think developers have made to use unicode in Python applications?
If you use frappe framework, it’s transparent for you!
And if any developer don’t understand about enconding, I don’t think that will be the standard or the missing standard support of utf-8 into a language that will make any kind of difference or prevent issues about enconding in his/her development, due the fact that utf-8 is only one, in bellow list!
437
850
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862
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865
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869
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ISO_8859-5
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ISO_8859-7:2003
ISO_8859-8
ISO_8859-8:1988
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JAVA
JIS0208
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JIS_X0212
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JP
KOI8-R
KOI8-RU
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KOREAN
KSC_5601
KS_C_5601-1987
KS_C_5601-1989
KZ-1048
L1
L10
L2
L3
L4
L5
L6
L7
L8
LATIN-9
LATIN1
LATIN10
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MAC
MACARABIC
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STRK1048-2002
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TCVN-5712
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TDS565
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UCS-2
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We hit a bug in importing our chart of accounts because it was UTF-8 encoded. Imported fine when we converted our file to ASCII. So, maybe not so automatic/transparent as you might say? If ERPnext were using Python 3, this certainly would not be an issue.
2 Likes
It builds and runs on Python 3.x. Of course, doing a bit of encoding is far easier than upgrading all current users (and codebase) to py-3.x. Of course, it will come in time, especially with some help!
In the meantime, if you import direct to db, it’s a no-brainer to config the developer environment to ensure that you or any foreign language contractors or one-off datasets have the login clients set-up for UTF-8, and the server can enforce it
You kids and your unicode 
-matto
I think it’s the case if a file doesn’t contain the charset tag on the beginning of the file. Since I am no python expert, I can’t say it with 100% confidence.
However, as I saw in some changes, they are preparing Frappe/ERPNext for Python 3 already.
1 Like
Closing this topic since