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[Python-Dev] Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Fri Mar 4 14:21:23 CET 2011 
On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 10:59 PM, Michael Foord
<fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk> wrote:
> Should any of this also apply to Mac OS X and Windows?

Any platform that considers itself "unix-like" in this context can
decide to follow it, we aren't fussy (e.g. Cygwin and the *nix-y
aspects of OS X). The main point of the PEP is to get a consensus
recommendation out of python-dev as to the best way forward (and I
think Kerrick did a good job of summarising the position that has been
expressed in this thread).

More generally, Windows and Mac OS X developers seem to be happier
with the idea of bundling a Python interpreter inside the application
than traditional *nix style platforms. This is a PITA for the system
maintainer when it comes time to handle security vulnerabilites, but
certainly more convenient when upgrading the default Python install.

> Note that we *do* have alternative distributors [1] of Python for these
> platforms who may wish to follow any recommendations we have for 2.7, even
> if we don't modify those installers for our own distributions.

The really tricky part on Windows is handling file associations. I
think we're just doomed on that front, unless we want to start
supporting separate .py2 and .py3 extensions (and adding *that* in a
maintenance release would be a far cry from just adding another
symlink).

The lack of near-universal symlink support on Windows filesystems is
also an issue - we would have to duplicate files like python.exe and
pythonw.exe on non-NTFS filesystems in order to provide them under
alternative names.

For *nix, I think there is a simple way forward that is an improvement
over where things stand now. For Windows, I don't think we can do much
better than the status quo and for Mac OS X... I think Apple will do
whatever Apple feel like doing :)

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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