[Python-Dev] Status of PEP 397 - Python launcher for Windows

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Mark Hammond <skippy.hammond at gmail.com> wrote:
> The launcher was slightly controversial when the pep was initially written
> 12 months ago.  If you believe the creation of the PEP was procedurally
> incorrect I'm happy to withdraw it - obviously I just want the launcher,
> with or without a PEP.  Alternatively, if you think the format of the PEP
> needs to change before it can be accepted, then I'm happy to do that too if
> you can be very specific about what you want changed.  If you mean something
> else entirely then please be very specific - I admit I'm not clear on the
> point of your message at all.

I think the PEP is appropriate, but some of the details that are
currently embedded in the prose should be extracted out to a clear
"specification" section:

- two launcher binaries (one for .py files, one for .pyw) will be
added to the system PATH
- the launcher will be shipped as part of the default CPython windows
installers (starting with Python 3.3)
- the launcher will handle launching both Python 2 and Python 3 scripts
- the launcher will be overwritten when upgrading CPython

As a practical matter, it *may* be worth having the launcher available
as an independent installer that just gets bundled with the CPython
one, but that shouldn't be a requirement in the PEP.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia