Switching to Python 3

[Nick Coghlan]

On 08/03/2012 04:57 PM, Bohuslav Kabrda wrote:
> Hi,
> I'd like to start a discussion about the release where we should switch to Python 3. As I have learned recently, Ubuntu 12.10 will have Python 3 as default [1], which makes me a sad panda :(

Just to clarify Ubuntu's Python 3 plans: they're not quite as crazy as Arch.

On 12.10, /usr/bin/python will still point to python2.7. The big change
they're aiming for is that their *installation CDs* will not include
Python 2, only Python 3, which means any Python utilities they include
with the base OS must be ported to Python 3.

> We always take pride in being close to upstream and having the bleeding edge. Python 3 is stable and more and more libraries support it. So I'd like to propose an idea to switch to Python 3 for Fedora 19.

I believe Fedora uses Python for more core OS infrastructure than Ubuntu
does, so it's a bigger migration challenge. Does anaconda run on Python
3? Does yum?

It's that delta of Python applications that Fedora ships as required
components in the base OS, but Ubuntu does not, that will potentially
cause problems.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan
Red Hat Infrastructure Engineering & Development, Brisbane