Re: Debian Python policy.

[Neil Schemenauer <nas@python.ca>]

Donovan Baarda wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2001 at 11:17:19PM -0700, Neil Schemenauer wrote:
> > Donovan Baarda wrote:
> > If you change the major or minor version of Python installed then
> > packages that depend on it must be upgraded.  There is no way around
> > that.
> 
> Yes, but the old packages still work for the old version of Python. One of
> the main reasons to continue running old versions of Python is because other
> packages haven't been updated yet.

Try to think exactly how this would work.  On the surface is seems like
a good idea but I think it leads to a lot of complexity and more work in
the end for the maintainers.  Say I have a Python program "foo" that
requires "python-bar".  Let's say the installed version of Python is
2.0.  So "python-bar" installs its modules into /usr/lib/python2.0.
"foo" depends on "python-bar" and uses /usr/bin/python.  What happens
when /usr/bin/python becomes Python 2.1?  Oops, it doesn't have the
"python-bar" modules.  Okay, how about we make "foo" use
/usr/bin/python2.0.  Now we upgrade to Python 2.1 and every works fine.
Now we upgrade "python-bar" so that it installs in /usr/lib/python2.1.
Oops, "foo" is broken again.  I think it only solution is to have the
version in the package name for all Python packages.  Now instead of
updating all the modules when a new version of Python is installed you
have to update all the modules and the the programs that use Python as
well.

You've added a large amount of complexity to handle some easily repaired
breakage that happens to the unstable version of Debian about once per
year.  I don't think that's a good tradeoff.

  Neil