Ad-hoc Debian Python BoF at PyCon US 2017
Doko, Barry, and I found ourselves in a room at PyCon US. These are the
minutes of our discussion:
== Deprecate Python 2 ==
Lintian checks for python 2 only packages
Lintian checks for /usr/bin/python2? shebangs
Ask FTP-master not to accept Python 2 only packages.
Start using python3-sphinx rather than python-sphinx.
== System Python ==
Whatever that even means, PEP 432?
Users sudo pip / setup.py installing packages can break their applications.
Getting /usr/local off sys.path is a way to stop that from happening, but
users will presumably work around it.
Doko would like to see some example bugs.
== Supporting Python 3.6 ==
Ubuntu is starting to do python 3.6 transition. Many bugs are being submitted
to debian, tagged debian-python@lists.debian.org/python3.6 Sadly not all of them.
We should do 3.6 after stretch opens.
== Python for Buster ==
3.7 should release in June 2018, 3.7.1 around September.
doko doesn't want to make 3.7 default until 3.7.1 has come out.
If we have a plan, the release team will hopefully allow us to use 3.7.1, even
if we freeze in November.
== Dropping 3.5 ==
As soon as 3.6 is the default.
doko is also working on GCC 3.7, atm.
== Debug packages ==
Python 3.6 has an alloc debugging framework that works in the normal (non-dbg) build.
https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.6.html#pythonmalloc-environment-variable
Which means that there is less value in the -dbg packages.
Another option would be to turn on the gcc address sanitizer or undefined
behaviour checker, to make it an even better debugging tool. The undefined
behaviour check may be a bridge too far to be useable.
People need to be reminded to create them. They are not dbgsym packages, but
actually a different interpreter.
== pypy3 ==
Sharing a sys.path with cpython is going to mean import errors in some cases.
We should probably just live with those, and see what the bugs look like. It'll
be fairly experimental at first.
== /usr/bin/python = python3? ==
Never! :)
== python 2.7s future ==
Buster *may* be the last Debian release with Python 2.x. Maybe drop it into
unstable-only, after that?
Stefano is sceptical :P
Fedora expects to be shipping 2.7 for a long while still.
== Scan the archive for Python 2.7 apps? ==
Checking Depends would be a good start. May want to scan shebangs too. Start
MBFing.
== DebConf17 ==
Python 3.6 porting sprint, somewhere near the end of DebCamp? On 3rd?
piotr has submitted a Python BoF.
--
Stefano Rivera
http://tumbleweed.org.za/
+1 415 683 3272
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