Re: Python Policy: Things to consider for Stretch

[Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com>]

On Sunday, January 24, 2016 04:33:55 PM Ben Finney wrote:
> Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> writes:
> > I don't particularly agree, but if that's correct, then there's a
> > large amount of change needed throughout the policy. These certainly
> > aren't the only places this comes up.
> 
> Yes, that's likely because when the Debian Python policy was initially
> drafted, there was no Python 3 anywhere close to entering Debian. So
> “Python” and “Python 2” were less ambiguously conflated at that time.
> 
> Now that Python 2 and Python 3 are both commonly (and correctly)
> referred to as “Python”, we need to take more care using the terms for
> what we mean.
> 
> > Ambiguous or not, I think the policy is mostly consistent in using
> > python and python3 vice python2 and python3.
> 
> Well that's another dimension of confusion :-) The term “python2” and
> “python3” are named of commands, more than the names of languages.
> 
> I think you're right that this needs a general clean-up through the
> policy document, to consistently use:
> 
> * “python2” to refer to that command only;
> 
> * “python3” to refer to that command only;
> 
> * “python” to refer to that command (and I'd suggest deprecating it
>   where feasible);
> 
> * “Python 2” referring exclusively to that language version 2.x and no
>   other versions of that language;
> 
> * “Python 3” referring exclusively to that language version 3.x and no
>   other versions of that language;
> 
> * “Python” referring to the language implemented either as Python 2 or
>   Python 3.
> 
> > At this point I think internal consistency is probably more important,
> > so if someone wants to go through and make all the python's that
> > should be python2, etc then please send in a patch.
> 
> I'll take that on. Send it to anywhere in particular? Or I can just send
> it to this forum.

Here or a bzr branch (per my other reply) somewhere is fine.  I agree with all 
of that except the idea of deprecating /usr/bin/python.  It'll never point to 
anything other than a Python (2) version in Debian, so there's no need to 
deprecate it faster than Python (2) in general.

Scott K