[Python-Dev] Python launcher command line usage (Was: 3.2.1 encoding surprise) (original) (raw)

Vlad Riscutia riscutiavlad at gmail.com
Fri Jul 22 03:03:22 CEST 2011

I'm kind of -1 on changing Python executable name. It would make sense for different major versions, where there are known incompatibilities, so python2-python3 would make sense but python31 python32 not that much...

If my team is using Python and it gets pre-installed with other dev-tools, do I need to let everyone know they must call python31? And if we upgrade, make sure everyone knows they should now call python32? What if we have scripts that call python? Make sure we update all of them whenever minor version is changed?

The way I look at it, most people have only one version of Python installed at one time and it's just extra burden to make them remember major+minor version number they have. If you actually install multiple versions, you do that for a reason and, since you know what you're doing, you would rather remember to pass correct -v argument to py than users who just want to use Python.

Thank you, Vlad

On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 12:42 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

On 7/20/2011 7:55 PM, Mark Hammond wrote:

On 21/07/2011 4:38 AM, Terry Reedy wrote:

Many installers first make an organization directory and then an app directory within that. This annoys me sometimes when they only have one app to ever install, but is useful when there might really be multiple directories, as in our case. (Ditto for start menu entries.) This is what python should have done a decade ago.

I disagree. If we followed that advice we would also be in "\Program Files". That is not what I suggested. I said let the use pick. I have no problem with multiple Python versions installed directly off the root, especially given most users probably have a very small number of such installations. I think Python being a developer tool rather than a user app is a reasonable justification for that (and the justification used when the existing scheme was decided) I put the multiple installations and several other directories into /programs. On my next machine, on order, I will use /devel. > The two proposals overlap but are not mutually exclusive. For future pythons, 'python33' is easier to remember and type than 'py -v 3.3' or whatever the proposed encantation is.

'py -3.3' - less chars to type than 'python33' and with no need to have every Python directory on your PATH. My proposal, as I clearly said, was for EXACTLY ONE directory to be added to PATH. In spite of Microsoft making is damned difficult for users to edit PATH, (and deleted programs not deleting their entries) I added 'C:/programs;'. I copied python32/python as py32 and python27/python as py27. Those are even fewer characters to type (4 versus 7). Now I can click a 'Command Prompt' icon and enter 'py32 -m test.regrtest' and it works without cd-ing to /programs/python32. Of course, I will have to re-copy with every install, which is why I would like something like this as part of installs. IMO it is also simple enough that people will remember it fairly easily. py32 is even easier to remember. Also, the launcher supports the ability to select either the 32 or 64bit implementation - so maybe 'python33.exe' isn't really good enough and should reflect the bittedness? Like py32-6? If I install both Pythons on my new 64 bit machine, I will think about it, though I have no need for both now. A python directory also gives a sensible (though optional) place to put other interpreters and even python-based apps. The launcher does not. What other interpreters? IMO it doesn't make sense to have IronPython, jython etc be installed there. Ditto for apps - especially given most apps tend to be tied to a subset of all possible Python versions. If I install pypy, /programs is exactly where I would put it until I somehow discovered that to be a problem. Its startup could be copied as pp26 or something. My idea may be not so good for general use, even though is now solves my problems, but please criticize what I said, allowing for obvious modifications like py32 instead of python32, and not a strawman that is wildly different. -- Terry Jan Reedy _______** Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev at python.org http://mail.python.org/**mailman/listinfo/python-dev<http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev> Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/ riscutiavlad%40gmail.com<http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/riscutiavlad%40gmail.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20110721/f86914c7/attachment.html>

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