On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Eric Smith <e...@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. -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
