On 2025-07-11 at 05:51:09 UTC-0400 (Fri, 11 Jul 2025 04:51:09 -0500)
Ryan Carsten Schmidt <[email protected]>
is rumored to have said:
On Jul 11, 2025, at 04:04, Bjarne D Mathiesen wrote:
I believe I read somewhere that the python community recommends that
"python" always be python 2.x, never python 3.x. Programs that want
to use python 3.x should use the program name "python3". If "port
select python" currently allows versions of python 3.x to be
selected, we may want to change that.
We did do a concerted effort in getting rid of python27 in macports
some
time back. If I remember correctly, I had a major part in updating a
lot
of stuff to at least python35 at that time.
Python27 is offically dead. It was only being kept around in a
comatose
state because of a lot of stuff not having been upgraded to python3.x
None of that contradicts what I wrote. Any program running "python"
expects it to be python 2.x. Don't make "python" be python 3.x or you
will break those programs.
At least, that was the wisdom I gleaned last time I looked this up
some years ago. If the position of the python community has changed
since then, please provide a citation.
I cannot speak for the Python community, but evidence supports that
having changed.
FreeBSD (since 12?) no longer includes any python in the base install,
2.7 is still in ports (because there are dependents with constituencies)
and there are 3 version of python3 in ports. None of them install a
simple 'python' binary or link.
On EL9-based systems 'python' means python3:
[bcole@gitlab ~]$ ls -l /usr/bin/python
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 Dec 12 2024 /usr/bin/python -> ./python3
[bcole@gitlab ~]$ ls -l /usr/libexec/platform-python
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 18 Dec 12 2024 /usr/libexec/platform-python ->
/usr/bin/python3.9
[bcole@gitlab ~]$ head /etc/os-release
NAME="AlmaLinux"
VERSION="9.5 (Teal Serval)"
ID="almalinux"
ID_LIKE="rhel centos fedora"
VERSION_ID="9.5"
PLATFORM_ID="platform:el9"
PRETTY_NAME="AlmaLinux 9.5 (Teal Serval)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;34"
LOGO="fedora-logo-icon"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:almalinux:almalinux:9::baseos"
Ubuntu 22 (like its Debian base) has no Python by default but it does
provide hints:
bcole@www:~$ python --version
Command 'python' not found, did you mean:
command 'python3' from deb python3
command 'python' from deb python-is-python3
macOS is a special case. The XCode CLT package installs a version of
Python3 that it links to /usr/bin/python3. As of SDK14 it includes a
python-config script that expects '/usr/bin/python ' to be python2,
which it is not true on any macOS 14 machine as configured by Apple.
What this indicates is 'correct' is beyond my capacity to discern.
Obviously nothing that actually works correctly in the base system can
depend on a 'python' link or binary existing at all
HOWEVER, unless one is using macOS 14 or later, I would not depend on it
being safe to have a 'python' link in the default $PATH that points to a
Python 3.x executable.
--
Bill Cole
[email protected] or [email protected]
(AKA @[email protected] and many *@billmail.scconsult.com
addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
