Why is Python so hard to maintain

[ichabod801]

But Python seems to have a core competence in backwards INcompatability. I’m wondering why that is.

They broke backward compatibility once. That does not make it a "core competence." They did it because there were problems with the language they wanted to fix. It's only a problem because a bunch of curmudgeons refused to update their code.

And the problem goes away in three and a half months. 2.7 support will end, and you can just stick to 3.x.