Skip Python 2.6 and use 2.7 as default in Squeeze?

[Lino Mastrodomenico <l.mastrodomenico@gmail.com>]

Given how much work is required to change the default Python, does it
make sense to just skip Python 2.6 and use 2.7 as the default Python
version in Squeeze?

The glaring downside of this is that 2.7 hasn't yet been released, but
a feature-complete beta is available and, given how big the test suite
is nowadays, it's pretty stable. The final 2.7 should be released in
June (see PEP 373 for the full schedule) which is, I guess, before the
release of Squeeze.

Python 2.7 is faster than 2.6 (in my limited tests from a few percents
to more than 7 times faster, the latter with a small CPU-intensive
math program), it has a few cool new toys, for many years in the
future it will be THE Python 2 version (it's the last one) and, most
importantly it has several new features to make the transition to
Python 3 easier.

Including it in Debian now should make many Python programmers happier
in the next few years.

Moreover AFAICT 2.7 is the most compatible-with-the-previous-version
Python release in the last 16 years, so switching to it from 2.6
should be much less painful than the switch from 2.5 to 2.6 (again in
my limited tests 2.7b1 can run without changes anything that ran on
2.6). And, of course, all the work done so far would not be wasted
since the changes required are largely the same.

TIA for any feedback to this crazy idea.

-- 
Lino Mastrodomenico