I may be making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I think these little things do matter. Python 2.6 introduced the "with" keyword, as you probably know. That's a breaking change, because it alters the language grammar and changes the meaning of previously legitimate programs. And it's a point release. This changes the "it won't break your program" statement to "this will probably not break your program".

When I see a statement that "backwards compatibility is guaranteed", I generally take that literally. And it's really a binary thing. Either it's guaranteed, or it isn't. And with Python it most definitely isn't.

We clearly look at this from a different perspective. I think it's a big deal, and you don't.