On Wed, Jul 10, 2019 at 7:48 AM Brett Cannon brett@python.org wrote:
On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 10:39 PM Steve Barnes GadgetSteve@live.co.uk wrote:
Currently the py[w] command will launch the latest python by default however I feel that this discourages the testing of pre-releases & release candidates as once they are installed they will become the default. What I would like is for the default to be the highest version number of a full release but the user to be able to specify a specific version even if it is a pre-release.
The currently py or py -3 would give python 3.7 (if installed) but py -3.8 would give the pre-release/release candidate if installed.
Any thoughts on whether this would be a good idea – I am quite willing to undertake the changes.
The problem with this is it would either make the Python launcher have to be updated with every release or it would have to download some data to know what versions are not considered stable. Both of these go against the general design of the launcher as it's meant to not require updating, be future-compatible, and extremely fast.
What about flipping that around - when you install, have an option to say "make this the default" (active by default), and if you untick it, it flags the installation as "not the default"? Available only if there's an existing default.
ChrisA