With the inclusion of packages such as pip and venv, I feel that Python 3 has become a complete package that should suit most people. Beyond legacy applications, there is no real reason not to choose Python 3 anymore. The initial Python 3 release in 2008 was definitely a bit raw compared to the well-rounded Python 2.6 version released the same year, but a lot has changed in that aspect. The last major Python 2 release was Python 2.7, which was released in 2010; within the software world, that is a very, very long time. While Python 2.7 still receives maintenance, it will not receive any of the amazing new features that Python 3 is getting—features such as Unicode strings by default, dict generators (Chapter 6, Generators and Coroutines – Infinity, One Step at a Time), and async methods (Chapter 7, Async IO – Multithreading without Threads).

After finishing this chapter, you should be able to create a clean and recreatable virtual environment and know where to look if an installation of C/C++ packages fails.

Here are the most important notes for this chapter:

The next chapter covers the Python style guide, which rules are important, and why they matter. Readability is one of the most important aspects of the Python philosophy, and you will learn methods and styles for writing cleaner and more readable Python code.