On 02/03/11 08:06, Guido van Rossum wrote: > On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Eric Smith<eric at trueblade.com> wrote: >> On 3/1/2011 4:19 PM, Kerrick Staley wrote: >>> >>> Hello, >>> There is a need for the default Python2 install to place a symlink at >>> /usr/bin/python2 that points to /usr/bin/python, or for the >>> documentation to recommend that packagers ensure that python2 is >>> defined. Also, all documentation should be changed to recommend that >>> "#!/usr/bin/env python2" be used as the shebang for Python 2 scripts. >>> This is needed because some distributions (Arch Linux, in particular), >>> point /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3, while others (including >>> Slackware, Debian, and the BSDs, probably more) do not even define the >>> python2 command. This means that a script has no way of achieving >>> cross-platform compatibility. The point at which many distributions >>> begin to alias /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3 is due soon, and for >>> the next couple of years, it would be best to use a python2 or python3 >>> shebang in all scripts, making no assumptions about plain python, which >>> should only be invoked interactively. This email from about 3 years ago >>> seems relevant: : >>> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2008-March/012421.html >>> Again, this issue needs to be addressed by the Python developers >>> themselves so that different *nix distributions will handle it >>> consistently, allowing Python scripts to continue to be cross-platform. >>> >> >> I believe we agreed at the language summit last year (or maybe even the year >> before) that "python" would always be python2.x, and "python3" would be >> python3.x. >> >> And by "always" we indeed meant forever. To do otherwise would break scripts >> even many, many years from now. > > Unfortunately distros are not following these guidelines. As long as > we still have the pythonX.Y links I think it's better to have > "python2", "python3" and "python" than total anarchy. > This was brought up when Arch Linux switched /usr/bin/python to point a python3 around six months ago, and at the time no-one could actually recall the decision to always point /usr/bin/python at python2 forever. In fact, the only decision that was clearly made (and acted on) was that "make install" for python3 would install /usr/bin/python3. e.g. http://www.mail-archive.com/python-dev@python.org/msg53204.html But if that decision was made, it was not documented anywhere that I can find, so effectively was a non-decision... Deciding that /usr/bin/python going to always point at python2 just makes me think that python3 is always going to be a second class citizen. Eventually python-2.7 will be long gone and it would seem wrong for people will still be using "python3" to run their scripts once python-3.xx is the primary python version. So a transition is going to need to be made here at some stage. Most distributions have been providing the /usr/bin/python2 symlink for a long time, with Debian being the notable exception. I think adding such a symlink is in the realm of what distribution packagers can choose to do on their own, but having it done automatically for python-2.7 would also be of benefit. Allan
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