Re: Python 4 and ‘python3’
Barry Warsaw <barry@debian.org> writes:
> On Nov 02, 2016, at 01:57 PM, Ben Finney wrote:
>
> >Certainly the command ‘python3’ should only ever point to the Python
> >3 interpreter.
> >
> >If upstream ever releases a “Python 4” but expects the interpreter
> >for that to also be named ‘python3’, I think we can declare upstream
> >to be directly courting user pain, and secede on behalf of our users.
>
> I wouldn't at all be surprised if /usr/bin/python is reclaimed for
> some future post-Python2-demise Python 4 interpreter. It might even be
> a good thing since I'm not sure I'd want a /usr/bin/python4.
What about a Python 4.0 that is just “the release that comes after 3.9”?
<URL:http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2014/08/python-4000.html>
Such a “Python 4.0” release would inevitably be referred to as Python 4,
and inevitably will be considered *not the same* as ‘/usr/bin/python3’.
That's what I'm saying is pointless user confusion: do we use
‘/usr/bin/python3’ for the interpreter? Do we use ‘/usr/bin/python4’?
Why, if they're deliberately compatible interpreters — indeed, they may
be the *same* interpreter?
Such a thoroughly, and persistently, confusing state of affairs is
entirely avoidable (just use Semantic Versioning, don't name it “4.0”
until it's backward-incompatible with all “3.xx”). I had thought that
was the sane and prevailing attitude of the Python release managers.
But the above post implies that pointless confusion will be directly
courted, merely because of some aesthetic objection to a two-digit
component in the version string.
> Not that I'm expecting Python 4 any time soon […]
At the current rate of Python releases, it's not very far in the future
before the Python release managers must decide what the version string
for “the release that comes after 3.9” will be.
Is there anyone seriously courting the idea that “Python 4.0 is part of
the Python 3 line”? I would hope not, yet the above post implies it. Can
that be quashed decisively?
--
\ “If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and |
`\ you friends are all watching you fall, I think a funny gag |
_o__) would be to pretend you were swimming.” —Jack Handey |
Ben Finney
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