Preparing for End of Support (Python 2.7)

[micdearmas]

I believe I have already migrated all the apps I needed to migrate from Python 2.7 and I now have them running on Python 3.9. However, all of them are using legacy bundled services, so I have a couple of questions:

1- Since my apps are now running primarily on Python 3.9 (in my dev server I still need to have installed Python 2.7 for using legacy bundled services, I'm not sure how it is when deployed to PROD, but they are working fine) will they be able to run (in PROD/GCloud) beyond 2024-01-30 (regardless of needing legacy bundled services) and will I be able to make changes to them after that date? 

2- Has Google mentioned when the functionality that is now packaged within legacy bundled services (Mail, Memcache, Task Queues, Datastore [db]) will be completely deprecated? I'm trying to figure how many more changes I have to make to my apps and how much time I have to do it.

Thanks.

[NoCommandLine · Accepted solution]

My personal thoughts

1. From Google's announcement

........We will continue to support the App Engine bundled services long-term, but we still recommend that customers consider migrating to the dedicated alternatives to take advantage of ongoing improvements and new features.

As the longest-running Google Cloud service, App Engine has a great history and many long-term customers. We are committed to supporting App Engine in the long term and helping our customers continue to grow and evolve on Google Cloud......

2. Google is enhancing the bundled services. They recently released support for 'Search' API (about 2 months ago). This had been a major request from users but Google had initially encouraged folks to use Elastic Search. From where I sit, if Google decided to finally support the Search API and only just released it, it wouldn't make sense to cut it off just about 8 months later

3. Keep in mind that Google also simply calls them bundled services - Google App Engine bundled services SDK for Python 3 . 'Legacy' is only referring to the previous generation runtime.

But at the end of the day, Google can also surprise you though I tend to believe that their surprises (surprise shutdown of products) don't extend to Cloud (at least it's more infrequent)

As an aside - the reason why you need Python 2.7 when you run bundled APIs on your dev server is because currently, you can only run bundled APIs using dev_appserver.py tool and dev_appserver.py requires Python. 2.7. Given that Google has finally removed dependency on Python 2.7 for running gcloud, it wouldn't surprise me if they later enhance dev_appserver.py and remove the dependency on Python 2.7

..... NoCommandLine ......

 https://nocommandline.com

A GUI for Google App Engine

[micdearmas]

Thank you @NoCommandLine , that explains a lot. I didn't know they had removed the word legacy from bundled services, that's a very good sign 😊