Python 2 to 3 conversion - embrace the pain

[Michael Torrie]

On 03/16/2015 03:13 AM, INADA Naoki wrote:
> I think application developers should use *only* Python 3 from this year.
> If we start moving, more library developers will be able to start
> writing Python 3 only code from next year.

An admirable sentiment, but I'm currently running the latest RHEL
release (v7) and Python3 is not part of the standard install.  I can get
it via Software Collections, but that installs to /opt and, by default,
does not integrate into the system environment (there are good reasons
for this of course).  So Python3 apps will never be integrated fully on
his major distribution.  And it is a major server platform.

RHEL 8 will turn this around completely, as Python 3 will be the default
system python, but that won't be out for several years.

A bit off topic here, but all of this highlights major weaknesses in the
Linux software distribution model. While we Linux nerds like to poke fun
at Windows for not even having a proper package manager until Windows
10, in fact the package manager is not always the best way to go.  Works
well for core system parts, and for distro maintainers.  But it sucks
miserably for developers, and to a lesser degree, end users.  I should
be able to have a stable core distro like RHEL 7 (or any distro), but
develop and distribute apps for Python 3 easily.  Say what you want
about Red Hat's Poettering, but what he says about this problem makes a
lot of sense:
http://0pointer.net/blog/revisiting-how-we-put-together-linux-systems.html.