[arch-general] a plea for python 2

[Evan Martin]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 7:53 PM, Qadri <Muhammad.A.Qadri at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Evan Martin <martine at danga.com> wrote:
>
>> As a software developer, I am now getting contacted by users where my
>> software doesn't work on Arch.  I even applied a patch submitted by an
>> Arch user to make my code use "python2" only to discover it broke my
>> software on Mac and Windows.
>>
>  To give an alternate to the already present "Code-correctness" answers, I
> might suggest A) contacting those distributing Windows and Mac binaries to
> include the appropriate support for python2, or B) Accept doing it wrong
> (sticking to python, not python2) and forcing Arch users to patch as
> needed. I might suggest B since Arch users likely won't be afraid to patch
> your program (or others' programs), and your program will probably be
> installed via the AUR using a PKGBUILD that patches it (hopefully well).

Thanks.  Python is included on OS X, so I doubt A will work.
B does seem to be my only option.  (What you call "doing it wrong" is
what I call "what everyone except Arch does".)

>> - Here's a project of mine where on AUR they've attempted to patch
>>  around the python/python2 thing in the PKGBUILD:
>>    http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ni/ninja-git/PKGBUILD
>>  However, the patch is not sufficient, which lead to another bug report.
>>
> I don't do much python and I know nothing about your project specifically,
> but it seems to me like a find and sed. Something like
> find . -type f 'sed' '-e' '"1s/python[^23]/python2/"' '{}' \;
> But I could just be ignorant about some subtleties. Regardless, just give
> it time. Some Archer will either fix it eventually or complain so another
> Archer fixes it. Or suggest a better fix for your software yourself. The
> need to patch this one line should not make or break your software in terms
> of use. Though, again, I could just be spouting ignorance.

Yes, a find and a sed would probably fix the problem.  (The existing
AUR script fixes a compile-time dependency on python=python2, but
doesn't fix the run-time one.)

I just wanted to be certain that you all think the proper fix is for
me to put in the docs something like "on Arch systems you need to do
[x] before building", whether [x] is "get the PKGBUILD with the patch
from AUR" or even "run the sed-python-with-python2.sh included in the
distribution".  It seems a little silly to me (breaking software
mostly inconveniences users, and in this particular case doesn't gain
you anything, as anyone who adds support for Python 3 could just as
well make their shebang mention it while they're changing other
things) but it's not my place to tell you what to do.