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Re: "Python2.6 as default"



Scott Kitterman wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 13, 2011 09:22:44 AM Barry Warsaw wrote:
> > On Apr 11, 2011, at 07:22 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > >Hopefully it will gain additional sanity before approval (the authors did
> > >improve it based on comments I sent them it could still be better). The
> > >notion that /usr/bin/python pointing to any python3 version in the near
> > >term is anything other than crazy talk is, well, crazy.
> > 
> > I agree we're[*] not there yet.  But I do think we're at a tipping point.
> > At Pycon 2011, where in previous years the responses were largely "we have
> > no plans to port to Python 3", it's now quite common to hear "we have an
> > experimental branch to support it" or "people are working on it".  So I do
> > think it's worth Debian thinking about, planning for, and possibly helping
> > with a transition to Python 3.
> > 
> > Python 2 won't go away any time soon.  If I had to guess, I'd say we're
> > probably 18-24 months away from actually being *able* to make python3 the
> > default, which I think is pretty well aligned with Guido's 5-year plan.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > -Barry
> > 
> > [*] and by "we" I mean the larger Python community, not just Debian.
> 
> If by "default" you mean something like "the version we normally use", then I 
> agree.  If you mean pointing /usr/bin/python at a python3 version, I don't.  
> Taking that step is not just about what's in the archive, it's about the 
> stacks and stacks of small python scripts that are used everywhere, but never 
> published.  Changing /usr/bin/python to be python3 is something I think 
> happens about one release before we remove python2 entirely.  I don't think 
> that's where we'll be in two years.

Can't that be solved in the release notes when that happens?  Something
like:

    python3 is now the default /usr/bin/python, so if you have existing
    python2 scripts you will need to make sure to use /usr/bin/python2
    instead (or convert them to python3).

Best wishes,
Mike


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