Also see PEP 299 for a slightly different approach.
Indeed. This proposal is more limited in scope than PEP 299, and appears better from a backwards compatibility perspective.
there's going to be two ways to spell the exact same thing. Both are still going to have to be memorized
Sure - though ideally over time the more verbose spelling will become less idiomatic, and new users will encounter it less, and learners won't need to memorize it because they won't need it and won't see it. Granted there would be several years between the new feature being introduced and when it is supported ubiquitously enough that the more verbose spelling becomes rare.
In a huge number of cases, it's actually better to separate out the library-like and script-like portions into separate files, or some other reorganization.
Other than the note about multiprocessing's spawn mode, I personally agree with this. But still: this is extremely heavily used. There are almost 32 million hits for this idiom on GitHub: https://github.com/search?q=%22__name__+%3D%3D+__main__&type=code It seems that many people find value in this, and so lots of new users continue to be exposed to it.
Generally, I think scripts in installed packages are better handled via setuptools entrypoints nowadays.
In my experience, people reach the point of splitting their own scripts out into private modules long before they reach the point of packaging things. I propose this because I think it makes a gentler path for learners. Pushing them in the direction of setuptools instead gives them a brand new hurdle to overcome, one that's even more complex than the rote memorization I'd like to see overcome.