On 07/03/2011 01:18, Mark Hammond wrote:
[snip...] That said though, I'm only -0 on python2.exe/python3.exe - I don't think it will hurt, but also don't think it will help that much in practice. It may also turn out to be unnecessary should a "complete" solution be implemented - eg, a "python launcher" which (a) read the shebang lines and (b) allowed something like "python -3" on the command-line would render both python3.exe and requests to have multiple installed Python versions on the PATH redundant.
A python launcher as you describe is a *great* idea. A few concerns: * we're missing an opportunity to do something easy (Martin is happy to modify the installer and says it is easy) for something that may or may not happen * will you call it python.exe? will it be installed by the python installer? - I doubt calling it python.exe will fly, but I'm not sure. If so what will you call what is currently 'python.exe'? - if not then "python foo.py" on the command line will *still* not work... - it will still have to be installed on the PATH, but I guess System32 will do for that - users without admin rights will still have to modify their PATH manually and place it somewhere else * we're (yet again) making instructions for running stuff on Windows *different* to other platforms (and making tutorials written for other pythons "not work" in certain ways) * as I work with multiple platforms it would be really nice if the same invocations worked across all of them - whilst I say again that I really like the idea of the launcher it doesn't conflict with the other suggestions (creating multiple binaries) and as you (Mark) say it wouldn't hurt... So why not do both? We could create the extra binaries to bring Python on Windows inline with the unix conventions for command line invocations, and the new launcher can follow on as a nice addition. Note that the discussions about the Python installer adding to the PATH won't be *ended* by the creation of the installer. A typical install on a Unix-like system adds various other utilities to the path that merely adding the top-level of your Python install on Windows still doesn't add. In particular distutils installed scripts go into a subdirectory of your Python install. All the best, Michael Foord
Cheers,
Mark
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