Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 18:36 UTC (Thu) by anatolik (guest, #73797)
In reply to: Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default by rahulsundaram
Parent article: Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

So we get to that false dilemma again "I do not want to change anything on my server that is why I am against other people change their software".

Well if you do not want to change your server configuration why do you install new version of Fedora at all? Arch and Fedora are known by their philosophy of living on the edge. And they first who changed python to v3 by default (somebody should be the first). If you do not like changes and do not want to make your scripts pythonv3 compatible then use other distro, thankfully there are a lot of different flavors with different release/support schedules.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 18:54 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (9 responses)

It doesn't have to be a all or nothing proposition. That is not a difficult concept to understand. /usr/bin/python pointing to Python 3 in Arch is against the recommendations of the upstream project and was never coordinated with upstream. It introduces unnecessary incompatibilities and breakages that could have been easily avoided. By all means, push for more projects to adopt Python3 but leave /usr/bin/python alone for the time being.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 19:01 UTC (Thu) by anatolik (guest, #73797) [Link] (8 responses)

> Arch is against the recommendations of the upstream project

Arch moved to Python3 Oct'2010 [1], PEP was accepted Feb'2012 [2]
So obviously Arch did not break any PEP at the time of migration.

[1] https://www.archlinux.org/news/python-is-now-python-3/
[2] https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-Februar...

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 19:06 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (7 responses)

They broke user scripts. The fact that they didn't technically break the PEP isn't the major issue. If they had coordinated with upstream about the change, the PEP wouldn't even have been necessary. It is not too late to revert the change either. They really should do it.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 19:22 UTC (Thu) by anatolik (guest, #73797) [Link] (6 responses)

> They broke user scripts.
Arch developers made a huge effort on making sure all the packages work with Python3. And were active at fixing all the incompatibilities.

> It is not too late to revert the change either. They really should do it.
Hopefully they will not do it. And I will vote against switching python to v2. Arch successfully uses python3 as a default version for 2 years now and those who needs python2 can easily install one. I have a number of packages that use python3 and python2, I do not see any problem with this. Hopefully Fedora will switch to Python3 as well. No more procrastination! Python community should more forward. Look at the Ruby community - it is a good source of inspiration for Python developers.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 19:30 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

"Arch developers made a huge effort on making sure all the packages work with Python3. And were active at fixing all the incompatibilities."

So? That has nothing to do with user scripts.

"Hopefully Fedora will switch to Python3 as well. No more procrastination! Python community should more forward."

Fedora will switch to Python 3 as will other distributions but unlike Arch will not make /usr/bin/python point to Python 3 by default. This entire conversation has nothing to do with procrastination or not moving forward.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 19:31 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Arch developers made a huge effort on making sure all the packages work with Python3. And were active at fixing all the incompatibilities.

IOW: they broke system's ABI for no good reason they spent a lot of time trying to fix it. Apparently they have too much time on their hands.

Hopefully they will not do it.

It's their choice. They have the right to do anything they want in their system but upstream will continue to use /usr/bin/python for python2-only scripts. I know of at least one project which does not plan to support system where /usr/bin/python is Python3 any time soon.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 24, 2013 19:57 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)

>> They broke user scripts.

>Arch developers made a huge effort on making sure all the packages work with Python3. And were active at fixing all the incompatibilities.

you just aren't getting it.

The issue isn't with Python scripts that Arch provides, it's with Python scripts from other sources, including scripts written in-house.

It's all those scripts that you have opted to break needlessly

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 25, 2013 0:01 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (2 responses)

So don't use Arch. Isn't this why we have 300 distributions of the same thing, so we have choice? Your problem with this isn't the choice, it's the fact that you are a afraid the Arch policy could become contagious.

I get why you are mad, stuff like this is the reason I stopped using Gentoo, but the fact is that what Arch does or doesn't do frankly doesn't matter.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 25, 2013 15:52 UTC (Fri) by leifbk (guest, #35665) [Link] (1 responses)

A Gentoo system has both Python 2 and 3 installed. You can choose yourself if you want to use Python 2 or 3 as default for user scripts:

balapapa ~ # eselect python list
Available Python interpreters:
  [1]   python2.7 *
  [2]   python3.2

Your comment that «stuff like this is the reason I stopped using Gentoo» is just plain BS. If you can't handle tools like eselect, you probably should stick to Ubuntu.

Fedora to switch to Python 3 by default

Posted Oct 26, 2013 4:03 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

You may or may not be aware, but the term "like this" implies of course that I'm not talking directly about python but incidents similar in nature where the install location of standard programs changed.

I don't play the game jump to conclusions and I suggest you stop playing it here as it's really not appropriate in this forum, you will find it's played frequently at slashdot where you can satisfy your craving for it.