I take your point, but I have a few counterarguments:<p>1. Python 3.4 was released 7 years after 3.0.  That&#x27;s a very long time.<p>2. Assuming you&#x27;re referring to the async features (none of the other stuff is really momentous), I can understand that for framework devs.  It&#x27;s really not a big deal for most users though, and because of the GIL, it&#x27;s not as if they&#x27;ll suddenly reap the benefits of parallelism.  All it really means is nicer algorithm expressions and event loops.<p>3. There&#x27;s no technical reason the new stuff couldn&#x27;t have been added to Python 2.  The roadblocks are manpower and politics.<p>4. Even if we stipulate async&#x2F;await&#x2F;asyncio are huge, busted Unicode support, 7 years of development, and breaking compatibility with everything is just a terrible tradeoff.<p>There&#x27;s just no way this was a good idea, and Python devs could earn a lot of credibility back if they just said &quot;oops&quot;.  But there&#x27;s no chance of that.