[Python-Dev] Another update for PEP 394 -- The "python" Command on Unix-Like Systems

[Barry Warsaw]

On Feb 13, 2019, at 08:20, Victor Stinner <vstinner at redhat.com> wrote:

> I'm a (strong) supporter of providing a "python" command which would
> be the latest Python version!

I think we should aspire for this to be the case too, eventually.  When this has come up in the past, we’ve said that it’s not appropriate to change PEP 394 until Python 2 is officially deprecated.  OTOH, I appreciate that distros and others have to make decisions on this now.  I think it’s worth discussing where we eventually want to be as a community, even if we continue to recommend no official change until 2020.

I personally would like for `python` to be the latest Python 3 version (or perhaps Brett’s launcher), `python2` to be Python 2.7 where installed (and not mandatory).  `python3` would be an alias for the latest Python 3.

> There was an interesting discussion about the Python version following
> Python 3.9: Python 3.10 or Python 4? And what are the issues which
> would make us prefer 3.10 rather than 4.0?
> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-September/006152.html

I don’t think this should be conflated with PEP 394.  IMHO, 3.10 is just fine.  Python 4 should be reserved for some future mythical GIL-less interpreter or other major API breaking change.  It might never happen.

-Barry

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