[Python-ideas] Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

[Guido van Rossum]

This should be brought up on the python-3000 list; I'm moving it there
using a Bcc to python-ideas.

To some extent it is up to the vendors who distribute binaries -- they
decide what to call it.

Perhaps we should only install "python3.0" and not "python". That is a
valid choice already and always has been (python2.1, python2.2, etc.
are always installed by default, "python" is just a convenient alias).

I think that worries about Python becoming the laughingstock of the
language world are highly exaggerated. The post you refer to sounds to
me like the typical cynical one-liner from someone who doesn't really
care, not about a position of someone who is influential in the world
of language users.

--Guido

PS. Java is the VB of this decare.

On Feb 1, 2008 10:41 PM, Ralf W. Grosse-Kunstleve <rwgk at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This is regarding the transition to Python 3, and the confusion caused
> by using the same executable name for two incompatible interpreters.
> The consequences of this struck me today when I saw this message
> appear on an important bulletin board for the field I'm working in:
>
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0802&L=ccp4bb&T=0&F=&S=&P=1562
>
> This posting is from a heavy-weight in the field (lookup his name with
> Google or better The Web of Science). Basically he's suggesting to forget
> about Python because it is an unreliable environment.
>
> There is also this reply calling the original posting "alarmist":
>
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0802&L=ccp4bb&T=0&F=&S=&P=1464
>
> And this one making fun of the whole thing:
>
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0802&L=ccp4bb&T=0&F=&S=&P=1675
>
> I interpret these messages as early signs of an imminent decade of confusion.
> Therefore my plea:
>
> PLEASE GIVE THE PYTHON 3 EXECUTABLE A DIFFERENT NAME AND THE SCRIPTS
> A DIFFERENT EXTENSION.
>
> It will be a terrible political setback otherwise. Many people don't
> *want* to understand even if they could. Mixing up two incompatible
> interpreters under one name will give them plenty of ammunition for
> cheap jokes and for defending their not-invented-here-or-before-I-was-16
> attitude.
>
> Ralf
>
> P.S.: My wife is from Hungary. It seems all men in Hungary have to
> have one of exactly three names: Andras, Laszlo, or Balazs. I never
> know whom she's talking about...
>
>
>
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-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)