Certain libraries (both standard and 3rd party) perform significantly better - in part because there appear to be some performance improvements in 2.6 which 3.0 also benefits from.
Standard ElementTree (pure python) is roughly 40% faster in Python 3 than in 2.5. cElementTree is likewise about 40% faster. A templating package I use runs 3 times slower on 2.5 than on 2.6 and 3.0 (similar performance on 2.6 and 3.0).
Bearing in mind that optimization work will follow on, I believe being "fast enough" is a good achievement for Python 3 and I'm personally pleased that performance will not be a roadblock for my own adoption. Where I can live on the bleeding edge I plan to.
UNICODE support would be reason enough to answer "what's the point".
Also, some operations in Python 3, particularly those that are relevant to me as a web application developer, are as fast as 2.6 and in fact significantly faster than 2.5.x.
If for no other reason than the much better support for Unicode - an advantage that will pay off dividends across all products built on 3 in the future - that would be reason enough.
As it is when you look at third party packages that claim to support Unicode you'll frequently find all sorts of cruft that doesn't play well with other packages.
With respect to Unicode and Python, what was once less than intuitive, is now easy. It just works.
Standard ElementTree (pure python) is roughly 40% faster in Python 3 than in 2.5. cElementTree is likewise about 40% faster. A templating package I use runs 3 times slower on 2.5 than on 2.6 and 3.0 (similar performance on 2.6 and 3.0).
Bearing in mind that optimization work will follow on, I believe being "fast enough" is a good achievement for Python 3 and I'm personally pleased that performance will not be a roadblock for my own adoption. Where I can live on the bleeding edge I plan to.