On Sep 19, 2014, at 10:23 AM, Donald Stufft wrote:
My biggest problem with ``python3``, is what happens after 3.9.
FWIW, 3.9 by my rough calculation is 7 years away.
I know Guido doesn’t particularly like two digit version numbers and it’s been suggested on this list that instead of 3.10 we’re likely to move directly into 4.0 regardless of if it’s a “big” change or not.
If that is the case, then all of the user education, ui, etc around ``python3`` would then need to be again updated to ``python4`` *OR* we’d need a ``python3`` bin which points to ``python4``. If there’s a call to action for at some point moving ``python`` to invoke Python 3.x at some point then hopefully at that point Python 4.x could just be ``python``.
All of this assuming of course that 4.0 isn’t a major break like 3.0 and that we do 4.0 instead of 3.10 as has been suggested.
I seem to recall Guido saying that *if* there's a 4.0, it won't be a major break like Python 3, whatever that says about the numbering scheme after 3.9. Is 7 years enough to eradicate Python 2 the way we did for Python 1? Then maybe Python 4 can reclaim /usr/bin/python. Cheers, -Barry