[Python-Dev] [PEPs] Rebooting PEP 394 (aka Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream) (original) (raw)

Toshio Kuratomi a.badger at gmail.com
Fri Aug 12 21:22:17 CEST 2011

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 12:19:23PM -0400, Barry Warsaw wrote:

On Aug 12, 2011, at 01:10 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:

>1. Accept the reality of that situation, and propose a mechanism that >minimises the impact of the resulting ambiguity on end users of Python >by allowing developers to be explicit about their target language. >This is the approach advocated in PEP 394. > >2. Tell the Arch developers (and anyone else inclined to point the >python name at python3) that they're wrong, and the python symlink >should, now and forever, always refer to a version of Python 2.x. FWIW, although I generally support the PEP, I also think that distros themselves have a responsibility to ensure their #! lines are correct, for scripts they install. Meaning, if it requires rewriting the #! line on OS package install, so be it. +1 with the one caveat... it's nice to upstream fixes. If there's a simple thing like python == python-2 and python3 == python-3 everywhere, this is possible. If there's something like python2 == python-2 and python-3 == python3 everywhere, this is also possible. The problem is that: the latter is not the case (python from python.org itself doesn't produce a python2 symlink on install) and historically the former was the case but since python-dev rejected the notion that python == python-2 that is no long true.

As long as it's just Arch, there's still time to go with #2. #1 is not a complete solution (especially because /usr/bin/python2 will never exist on some historical systems [not ones I run though, so someone else will need to beat that horse :-)]) but is better than where we are now where there is no guidance on what's right and wrong at all.

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