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#564: EVE Online Departs for Python 3

September 22, 2026 · 1 h 8 min

Show notes

Every ship in EVE Online eventually undocks and leaves the station. This time, it's the whole game. EVE has run on Python 2 since it launched in 2003, all 2.4 million lines of it, on a custom Stackless interpreter that stopped at 3.8 and was archived last year. Destination: Python 3.12. The route runs through 6,500 lines of division that decide who wins a fight, and 100 gigabytes of pickled Python objects that have to survive the jump intact. Kristinn Sigurbergsson was on this show ten years ago. He's back, with Jamie Bannister, who is flying the EVE Online migration right now, and Thomas Dähling, who took EVE Frontier through first. In EVE, a destroyed ship is gone for good. There are no do-overs, and the universe has to stay online the whole way.

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Talk Python Courses

Links from the show Guests
Jamie Bannister: linkedin.com
Thomas Dähling: linkedin.com
Kristinn Sigurbergsson: linkedin.com

EVE Online: www.eveonline.com
EVE Frontier: evefrontier.com
2.4 million lines of Python: www.eveonline.com
Example of graphics, ships walk-through: www.youtube.com
Stackless: www.stackless.com
futurize: python-future.org
blue: github.com
Dev blog on the Frontier upgrade: evefrontier.com
Upgrading CARBON to Python 3: www.youtube.com
carbon-scheduler: github.com
Scheduling in Carbon: Leaving Stackless Python Behind: www.youtube.com
All of Carbon is on GitHub now: github.com
did a whole course: training.talkpython.fm
Trade Wars BBS (Wikipedia): en.wikipedia.org
TW 3002 - TradeWars 2002, reimagined as a modern browser game: www.reddit.com

Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com
Episode #564 deep-dive: talkpython.fm/564
Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm

Theme Song: Developer Rap
🥁 Served in a Flask 🎸: talkpython.fm/flasksong

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