A festive bug report:

>>> from __future__ import barry_as_FLUFL
>>> barry_as_FLUFL.mandatory
(3, 9, 0, 'alpha', 0)

So barry_as_FLUFL is documented to become mandatory for Python 3.9. Note that mandatory here means that the feature becomes permanent without the __future__ import and cannot be switched off. In this case, this means the '!=' operator becomes a SynaxError, with obvious consequences for existing python code.

Now of course this is just an Easter egg, but given that 3.9 is surely on the horizon now, isn't it time to modify the joke, or maybe I'm missing the point and the joke is on me?

SO question where this derived from:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53830960/can-all-future-statements-be-removed-from-a-python-code-without-affecting-i

Let's extend the "joke" and make it mandatory in Python 4! :)

New changeset 55cc34500e5abbfedb89adc95e3f94d53c544933 by Barry Warsaw (Chris Rands) in branch 'master':
bpo-35526: make __future__.barry_as_FLUFL mandatory for Python 4.0 (#11218)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/55cc34500e5abbfedb89adc95e3f94d53c544933

Good thing we don't need a barry_as_GUIDO alias.