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

Matthias Klose doko at ubuntu.com
Sun Mar 6 17:57:13 CET 2011 
On 02.03.2011 16:54, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> /tangent
> 
> Does this discussion remind anyone else of the bash/dash switch for
> /usr/bin/sh in Ubuntu?
> 
> The distro itself coped fine, but 3rd party shell scripts that used
> bash extensions were a whole different story.
> 
> (No, I'm not sure what lessons, if any, we can draw from that. It just
> struck me as an interesting parallel worth mentioning)

I think that comparison is wrong.  /bin/sh is defined to point to a Bourne
compatible shell.  If you use bash features, and you are not using /bin/bash,
then you are calling for trouble.  With /bin/sh, there is a standard what to
expect, and you can write /bin/sh scripts which conform to all /bin/sh
implementations.

Compare that to /usr/bin/python and try to define how to write a script that
works with reasonable new 2.x and 3.x python versions.  Maybe there is a small
subset of scripts (not using any third party python package), but how would such
a "standard" be useful?  Then even better point /usr/bin/python to
/usr/bin/perl6, then at least all scripts break consistently ;)

  Matthias
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