[Python-Dev] Python 3 as a Default in Linux Distros (original) (raw)

Lennart Regebro regebro at gmail.com
Thu Jul 25 13:19:29 CEST 2013

On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Laurent Gautier <lgautier at gmail.com> wrote:

- a user is running a python script (he expects to be working), and is using the default /usr/bin/python (formerly Python 2, now Python 3). If the program fails because of obvious Python 2-only idioms, reporting this rather that the SyntaxError is much less confusing.

2to3 will not report this. It will get rid of the SyntaxError (which at least is fairly clear) and give you a completely different and even more obscure error. You have replaced a somewhat unclear error with a very unclear error.

If we want to report a problem, then /usr/bin/python should just report that you should use /usr/bin/python2 or /usr/bin/python3.

That's clear.

//Lennart

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