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

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> Calling it python.exe would make the most sense for people who don't
> look behind the curtain, but I agree it could potentially be confusing
> for people. Further, we would need to ensure we didn't create an
> infinite loop where the launcher python.exe found a python.exe it
> thought was an appropriate sub-process, but where it turns out it is
> actually another launcher.
>
> Having it installed by the Python installer also makes sense to me but
> I'd be very interested in Martin's take on this (and also on everything
> else we are discussing here).

I think I would be opposed to adding a launcher to 2.7. It also
wouldn't be necessary - if it was released with 3.3, then it could
still do version switching for 2.7.

If it's called "python.exe", I wonder what it should do when given a
file that doesn't carry version information.

> I suspect most people just
> find it more convenient to launch such scripts from a console. Maybe a
> quick poll on python-list would be reasonable...

I certainly have script files that I double-click. However, those happen
to be batch files, not Python. If I would do scripting in Python (which
I don't do much these days), I would like to be able to double-click
them. I always write my scripts so that they don't give exceptions :-)

Actually, the one Python script I run regularly is msi.py, and I
currently launch it in a terminal window, because I need to run it with
c:\python25\python.exe, which double-clicking won't do for me. If I
could double-click it, I would like that more (there is also the issue
that the script needs the VS envvars set, so I'd need to find a solution
to that, also).

Regards,
Martin