Concerning Python3 support

Since 2.4.1 is now released, I've been spending my allocated Cheetah-time
looking at what will be required to support Cheetah on Python3. While I
personally am not using Python3 for anything other than to develop modules for
Python3, I feel this is an important goal to acheive for Cheetah as a project.

Currently, Cheetah is rife with _ancient_ code, some of it relying on modules
that were deprecated with Python 2.4 or later, additionally there are sections
of the codebase that are non-obvious in functionality and/or hackish.
Supporting Python3 offers us a few notable things:

   * In order to support Python3, a lot of code needs to be refactored, meaning
     there is the opportunity to use newer Python features such as generators,
     yielding, etc; Theoretically Cheetah 2.4.xx will benefit from these
     improvements in the form of faster runtime and/or lower memory footprint
   * Publicity; being one of the first (if not *the* first) major templating
     engines to support Python3 will hopefully garner the Cheetah project some
     publicity and help bring more users and contributors into the mix
   * Longevity; with the moratorium on language changes in effect, supporting
     Python2 (Cheetah 2.4.xx) and Python 3 (Cheetah 3.0.xx), Cheetah will
     be able to run on every potential incarnation of Python available to
     end-users

Right now, the diff for the refactoring changes being made in the "next" branch
is pretty huge: http://gist.github.com/268365

There are still some major show stoppers I've got to fix in order to get
templates to *execute* under Python3 but progress is being made (generating
templates (static/dynamic) works, but executing the code does not).

I don't really have an objective or a requirement for testers just yet, I just 
wanted to update the community at large as to the happenings. I'm hoping within
another couple weeks I'll have a release candidate ready for testing on
Python3.

Consider yourselves in the loop :)


Cheers,
-R. Tyler Ballance
--------------------------------------
 Jabber: [email protected]
 GitHub: http://github.com/rtyler
Twitter: http://twitter.com/agentdero
   Blog: http://unethicalblogger.com

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