[Linux-SIG] Revisit of PEP 394 -- The "python" Command on Unix-Like Systems

[Nick Coghlan]

On 3 August 2017 at 00:41, Petr Viktorin <encukou at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 08/02/2017 04:29 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
>> While I'm happy I at least brought it up, I still can't convince
>> myself to actually *like* this idea relative to the "compile it and
>> report on the results" approach combined with the ability to opt-in to
>> replacing that default script with a symlink to the desired version.
>
> Just compiling won't work -- consider `import pathlib` for example.

I'm aiming to separate "definitely won't work" (i.e. won't even
complile) from "might work" (i.e. there are other reasons things can
fail at runtime)

> This is UX, but for sysadmins (and other command-line users). Rather than
> trying to do what they mean, we should aim to synchronize their expectations
> and the reality.
> I'd rather have /usr/bin/python failing hard with a good error message than
> trying non-obvious heuristics. Avoid the temptation to guess.

Exactly. However, *compiling* is something we can do quickly *before*
reporting that error message.

Cheers,
Nick.

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