Allan McRae wrote:
Hi everybody,
Python-2.6 is out and Python-3.0 is scheduled for release in a couple of weeks. People have been asking how I am going to handle the update so I thought I'd post a summary here.
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According to the number of emails in my inbox (which has reached well into double figures), my plan for the python 2.6 and 3.0 upgrade is rather controversial. So, I thought that I would add some more justification here and point out that if people want to comment on the strategy they can do so by replying to public mailing lists because it is getting repetitive I will no longer be replying individually to people. Here are the possible upgrade strategies. Plan 1: python = python3.0 python2 = python2.6 Plan 2: python = python2.6 python3 = python3.0 These are the advantages/disadvantages of these plans as far as I can see. Many programs point at "/usr/bin/python" or "/usr/bin/env python". For Plan 1, the /usr/bin/python binary is python3.0 so that involves rebuilding packages and changing them to point at "python2". For some, this is as simple as rebuilding. Others require a simple sed statement. Also, with Plan 1, anything with a python depends/optdepends will need rebuilt. So, Plan 1 involves *a lot* more rebuilding that Plan 2 (around 125 packages vs 47 packages in [extra]). Plan 2 will also require adjusting programs built against python3 to point at /usr/bin/python3 in their scripts and changing the dependency to python3 so this is a now versus later issue. Also, with Plan 2, at some later stage we will want the /usr/bin/python binary to be python-3.x and probably to keep a legacy python-2.x package. That tells me, that Plan 2 requires moving to Plan 1 at a later time. So in summary: Plan 1 - Big rebuild now. People complain "Allan broke it"... Plan 2 - Medium rebuild now, drawn out transition, followed by medium/big rebuild later. People complain "Allan broke it" long term... I am going to go for Plan 1 unless someone convinces me the Plan 2 is a better plan _long_ term. I prefer short term pain for long term benefit rather than long term pain for short term benefit. Cheers, Allan