Support Python 2 with Cython

Summary

Many popular Python packages are dropping support for Python 2 next month. This will be painful for several large institutions. Cython can provide a temporary fix by letting us compile a Python 3 codebase into something usable by Python 2 in many cases.

It’s not clear if we should do this, but it’s an interesting and little known feature of Cython.

Background: Dropping Python 2 Might be Harder than we Expect

Many major numeric Python packages are dropping support for Python 2 at the end of this year. This includes packages like Numpy, Pandas, and Scikit-Learn. Jupyter already dropped Python 2 earlier this year.

For most developers in the ecosystem this isn’t a problem. Most of our packages are Python-3 compatible and we’ve learned how to switch libraries. However, for larger companies or government organizations it’s often far harder to switch. The PyCon 2017 keynote by Lisa Guo and Hui Ding from Instagram gives a good look into why this can be challenging for large production codebases and also gives a good

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