[akadruid1]

The mistake was the way it was handled. I'm not sure Python trod that narrow path well - not all the breaking changes in Python3 were clear advantages, especially in the pre-3.5 days, the migration path was harder than necessary as a result, and the timeline was clearly too aggressive with hindsight.

Python got very lucky with their strong community support. Millions of hours were invested into upgrading Python2 code to Python3, essentially on trust in the early years (2009-2013).

Without the strong community support Python could have gone the way PHP did in the 5 -> 7 -> 8 era

It's interesting to compare these with languages that never did the breaking change to clear out their tech debt. Back in the day, Javascript was nearly universally hated (The Good Parts was very controversial!), and it nearly splintered into multiple languages, but managed to consolidate under ES5 and then explode in popularity without ever having a Python2-3 moment.