[arch-general] Python 3 Rationale?

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Max Countryman <maxc at me.com> wrote:
> First, thank you for the link, it's good to read a more fleshed out perspective.
>
>> Of course, your own python scripts will need to point at /usr/bin/python2. However, by doing this you may run into portability issues across distros. There does not appear to be an easy solution for that at the moment. It seems that while most (all?) distributions include a /usr/bin/python3 link to their python3.xbinary, none do the same thing for python2.x. Either create your own symlink in your path for those distros or even better file a bug with them asking for such a symlink. They are going to need one in the future…
>
> This definitely complicates development. While I appreciate being on the bleeding edge, in some cases it may not always be desirable.

in most cases you can probably do whats needed to get <insert here> to
just use python2 instead.  i'm a developer by profession... and this
whole thing is pretty disruptive to meh w3rk flow... but hey, we
wouldn't be here if we didn't expect these things, right? :-)

> Is Python 3 truly ready for primetime? I have read that some libraries are not yet ported and that Python 3 is not yet recommended for development purposes.

AFAIK, py3k is the _only_ thing recommended for new development.  the
2.x series is frozen; 3.x is the clear path forward... we've all known
this for some time, and some of us procrastinated :-) [me].  the
current version is 3.1.2... i think it's past the .0 bugs; sluggish
libraries have little to do with the interpreter itself.

> I'm still not really clear on the rationale for the timing; to put it in testing makes complete sense. The migration from testing is my only concern
>
> Lastly, let me also add that the rebuild is very impressive. Congratulations and thank you for your wonderful efforts!

as annoying as this whole thing is to my projects, i understand and
support the decision 100%.  sooner is always better than later... when
our stuff is solid again, other distro's will be dealing with the same
thing.  it's inevitable, Smith.

C Anthony