Given how much work is required to change the default Python, does it make sense to just skip Python 2.6 and use 2.7 as the default Python version in Squeeze?
The glaring downside of this is that 2.7 hasn't yet been released, but a feature-complete beta is available and, given how big the test suite is nowadays, it's pretty stable. The final 2.7 should be released in June (see PEP 373 for the full schedule) which is, I guess, before the release of Squeeze. Python 2.7 is faster than 2.6 (in my limited tests from a few percents to more than 7 times faster, the latter with a small CPU-intensive math program), it has a few cool new toys, for many years in the future it will be THE Python 2 version (it's the last one) and, most importantly it has several new features to make the transition to Python 3 easier. Including it in Debian now should make many Python programmers happier in the next few years. Moreover AFAICT 2.7 is the most compatible-with-the-previous-version Python release in the last 16 years, so switching to it from 2.6 should be much less painful than the switch from 2.5 to 2.6 (again in my limited tests 2.7b1 can run without changes anything that ran on 2.6). And, of course, all the work done so far would not be wasted since the changes required are largely the same. TIA for any feedback to this crazy idea. -- Lino Mastrodomenico -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-python-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/z2icc93256f1004191719vd8d48523za77c14f3284e8...@mail.gmail.com
