[Python-Dev] Promoting Python 3 [was: PyPy 1.7 - widening the sweet spot]

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Xavier Morel writes:
 > On 2011-11-22, at 17:41 , Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
 > > Barry Warsaw writes:

 > >> Hopefully, we're going to be making a dent in that in the next version of
 > >> Ubuntu.

 > > This is still a big mess in Gentoo and MacPorts, though.  MacPorts
 > > hasn't done anything about ceating a transition infrastructure AFAICT.

 > What kind of "transition infrastructure" would it need? It's definitely
 > not going to replace the Apple-provided Python out of the box, so
 > setting `python` to a python3 is not going to happen.

Sure, but many things do shadow Apple-provided software if you set
PATH=/opt/local/bin:$PATH.

I'm not sure what infrastructure is required, but I can't really see
MacPorts volunteers doing a 100% conversion the way that Ubuntu's paid
developers can.  So there will be a long transition period, and I
wouldn't be surprised if multiple versions of Python 2 and multiple
versions of Python 3 will typically need to be simultaneously
available to different ports.

 > It doesn't define a `python3`, so maybe that?

A python3 symlink or script would help a little bit, but I don't think
that's necessary or sufficient, because ports already can and do
depend on Python x.y, not just Python x.

 > Is there a document somewhere on what kind of things distros need
 > for a transition plan?

I'm hoping Barry's blog will be a good start.<wink/>

 > Macports provide `port select` which I believe has the same function
 > (you need to install the `python_select` for it to be configured for
 > the Python group), the syntax is port `select --set python $VERSION`:

Sure.

I haven't had the nerve to do this on MacPorts because "port" is such
a flaky thing (not so much port itself, but so many ports assume that
the port maintainer's local configuration is what others' systems use,
so I stay as vanilla as possible -- I rather doubt that many ports are
ready for Python 3, and I'm not willing to be a guinea pig).

The problem that I've run into with Gentoo is that *even when the
ebuild is prepared for Python 3* assumptions about the Python current
when the ebuild is installed/upgraded gets baked into the installation
(eg, print statement vs. print function), but some of the support
scripts just call "python" or something like that.  OTOH, a few
ebuilds don't support Python 3 (or in a ebuild that nominally supports
Python 3, upstream does something perfectly reasonable for Python 2
like assume that Latin-1 characters are acceptable in a ChangeLog, and
the ebuild maintainer doesn't test under Python 3 so it slips through)
so I have to do an eselect dance while emerging ... and in the
meantime things that expect Python 3 as the system Python break.

So far, in Gentoo I've always been able to wiggle out of such problems
by doing the eselect dance two or three times with the ebuild that is
outdated, and then a couple of principal prerequisites or dependencies
at most.

Given my experience with MacPorts I *very much* expect similar
issues with its ports.