Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink?

[Colin Higwell]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:11:16 +0000, HoneyMonster wrote:

(reformatted (I hope)

> $ cd /usr/bin
> $ ls -l python*
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 9496 Oct 27 02:42 python
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  6 Oct 29 19:34 python2 -> python
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 9496 Oct 27 02:42 python2.7
> $ diff -s  python python2.7
> Files python and python2.7 are identical
> $
> 
> I'm just curious: Why two identical files rather than a symlink?

Sorry, my first post didn't format properly.