How long will arcgisscripting module be around?

Question

I've only modified a small percentage of scripts to use arcpy.  At what version will arcgisscripting go away and arcpy be the only option?

gpnobbir · Answer

My 9.2 code still works in 10.1. The .create(9.3) makes the new functionalities in 9.3 available to the script. import arcgisscripting
gp = arcgisscripting.create()

rows = gp.SearchCursor(r"C:\data\fgdb.gdb\lines")

row = rows.next()

while row:
    print row.getValue("MYFIELD")
    row = rows.next()
    
del row
del rows

curtvprice · Answer

Just want to add, if you want your scripts to be fully forward compatible, say, so it will work in 9.3 and 10.0 and ..., you need to specify a version of arcgisscripting. Esri has kindly provided a way to make sure the arcgisscripting object model for previous versions of ArcGIS is still available. gp  = arcgisscripting.create(9.3)

The module it self hasn't changed that much - mostly changes to the list functions and cursors, but enough to break your scripts in future versions if you forget to specify the version you want.

JasonScheirer · Answer

For a very, very long time. Arcpy is built on it, and we don't really want to ever break backward compatibility with your scripts.