On Mar 1, 2011, at 5:06 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote: > On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Eric Smith <e...@trueblade.com> wrote: >> On 3/1/2011 4:19 PM, Kerrick Staley wrote: >>> >>> Hello, >>> There is a need for the default Python2 install to place a symlink at >>> /usr/bin/python2 that points to /usr/bin/python, or for the >>> documentation to recommend that packagers ensure that python2 is >>> defined. Also, all documentation should be changed to recommend that >>> "#!/usr/bin/env python2" be used as the shebang for Python 2 scripts. >>> This is needed because some distributions (Arch Linux, in particular), >>> point /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3, while others (including >>> Slackware, Debian, and the BSDs, probably more) do not even define the >>> python2 command. This means that a script has no way of achieving >>> cross-platform compatibility. The point at which many distributions >>> begin to alias /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3 is due soon, and for >>> the next couple of years, it would be best to use a python2 or python3 >>> shebang in all scripts, making no assumptions about plain python, which >>> should only be invoked interactively. This email from about 3 years ago >>> seems relevant: : >>> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2008-March/012421.html >>> Again, this issue needs to be addressed by the Python developers >>> themselves so that different *nix distributions will handle it >>> consistently, allowing Python scripts to continue to be cross-platform. >>> >> >> I believe we agreed at the language summit last year (or maybe even the year >> before) that "python" would always be python2.x, and "python3" would be >> python3.x. >> >> And by "always" we indeed meant forever. To do otherwise would break scripts >> even many, many years from now. > > Unfortunately distros are not following these guidelines. As long as > we still have the pythonX.Y links I think it's better to have > "python2", "python3" and "python" than total anarchy.
If python upstream would make it clear that that *IS* the policy, distros might follow it. Right now, there is no clear guidance, as far as I can tell. If you do not want distros making python be a link to python3, please say so loudly, preferably on a webpage on python.org that users can point the distros to. James _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com