-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 14/12/11 19:24, Evan Martin wrote: > Hello, > > I'm a recent Arch user, a refugee from Ubuntu. I was attracted to > Arch because I was tired of Ubuntu forcing their new software on me > -- it seemed the Arch way was to allow you to use bleeding edge if > you wanted it, but to not fork upstream. > > So it was with some surprise that I discovered that Arch made > /usr/bin/python point to something other than Python 2. This > differs from every other system (not only other Linuxes, but also > [as I learned from bug reports I received] OS X and even python.exe > on Windows). > Hi Evan, Welcome to Arch Linux, I don't know why many Ubuntu users are coming here just directly, makes me wonder what we can be a "solution" for "problems" for Ubuntu users. > I appreciate that y'all want to use the bleeding edge, and it > completely consistent with my understanding of Arch that you would > only provide Python 3 by default as well as write your system > scripts use Python 3. (I write this mail with some trepidation as > I fear a response like "STFU noob Arch is bleeding edge", which is > emphatically not a response to the issue I'm actually raising.) > Well in the FOSS World that kind of responses are known, but your mail seems decent to reply you that. > What I don't understand is why you're manually patching upstream > software to rewrite references from /usr/bin/python to > /usr/bin/python2. This sort of forking is exactly the sort of > divergence (like how Ubuntu modified their GTK to add their own > specific hooks) that I was fleeing from when I came to Arch. :( > You can see in the references below that it appears this is > contrary to how upstream thinks it should work. > Not necessary, you will see some people posting you some pep links about python and pytho3 > It means that I can't download any random project (such as > Chromium) and build it without first applying Arch-specific > patches. And upstreams like Chromium can't change to support > Arch's divergence without breaking their code on non-Arch systems. > There are some apps that you will have to patch in order to work with any distro non-specified by them, I can remember patching oracle-xe like 4 or 6 years ago, cheating the installer with some Red Hat path in order to install. That is not our fault obviously. > 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. > > So my questions for you are > > 1) Is it intentional that I am unable to use software from > upstream like Django unmodified? Am I expected to only install > software from the Arch repositories, where it has been patched by > Arch devs to work on Arch? (See below for more on Django.) > As a python developer i wonder why you don't use virtualenv [1]? virtualenv will solve you many problems, not only in Arch, for your development work with out-of-date or too updated python and libraries, after do the hello world, and run the pep8 the next step for a python developer should be to use virtualenv, in order to have best practices. > 2) Should I change the software I write to attempt to detect when > I'm on an Arch system and adjust scripts/etc. accordingly? (I can't > just "fix it" because there is no /usr/bin/python2 on existing > systems like Macs.) Again use virtualenvs [1] for your python development [1] http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv - -- Angel Velásquez angvp @ irc.freenode.net Arch Linux Developer / Trusted User Linux Counter: #359909 http://www.angvp.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJO6X4pAAoJEEKh2xXsEzutHVcH/iO1wrXDb+SBJbJvc21pb6Zy 3VjEwps9aKpJknesLB6cR6S5TlBWpU+XgJMvPQXIObduN4Ejj3/8N1xbMmktCwZC YqzFMI1kXrchyUrSztN5tm8LhDf19ZgaazJziiqoc/uw4BxueT0FEQTO3LEK3cLy NUhCKl4Tvt2sDPcizAGh8FDDgsoSGs2jpEyWQ+MI+5cOpXj5Ry0TE1EZQuznCV+k PaN/bnDrItTQnay+bV/RB6yDdn34zGCjAnx3+bgd7fN8XdfpIyPCuu9WDjlRIq2J fvzXgqhjRP3O6lblBwoCGi1lV0mMav5q7PLsalz5g+6UOdXLYKnKOw6cfvamGfY= =aohR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
