I disagree with the author. The whole point of changing the number is to indicate a major change. Its about making the language much better, and if doing that requires breaking compatibility, then so be it.
The idea is that there won't be large amounts of backwards incompatibility in a single version bump. We all know how well that worked out for Python 2 -> Python 3.
There will of course be backwards incompatible changes introduced through a normal deprecation cycle. No one is suggesting Python remain static forever.
Semantic versioning exists, means something, and is fairly unambiguous. It's not compulsory, but not following it is kind of a dick move.
At any rate, the point of the article was that Python 2 to Python 3 levels of disruption are not going to happen again and that people waiting for that (the "Python 4000" people) are going to be disappointed, so they should stop proposing disruptive and non-backwards compatible enhancements that aren't compelling.
Where he says "no major backwards compatibility breaks" is important.
edit: more succinctly, "don't worry, we won't pull a 2 to 3 level move again any time soon, if ever"
> The whole point of changing the number is to indicate a major change.
That may be what you'd prefer a major version number change to indicate, but the Director of the Python Software Foundation might have more insight than you into what the next major version number for Python will actually mean.
