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As somebody who only occasionally uses Python, the fact that the default `python` binary on my system resolves to Python 2.x and I need to specify `python3` to

As somebody who only occasionally uses Python, the fact that the default `python` binary on my system resolves to Python 2.x and I need to specify `python3` to invoke 3.x, means I am quite often mistakenly using Python 2 instead of 3. How can we expect Python 3 to become the default if Python 2 still asserts such dominance?

jonfw 7y ago
That's not a python thing- that most likely has to do with your package manager. In my archlinux installation, python resolves to 3, and I have to use python2 if I want 2
- izolate 7y ago
  Well, PEP 394 suggested it be this way, so Python is also a bit complicit.
  - bscphil 7y ago
    As the history section of that PEP notes, it was actually written in part as a response to distributions like Arch changing the default Python to Python3. Although it's true that the PEP originally said that python should point to Python2 (it doesn't any more), it also said that code requiring a specific version of Python shouldn't assume anything about the system default Python, instead using either python2 or python3 - and requests that distributors of Python provide these commands. This suggestion was adopted by nearly everyone, including Arch Linux. If you're writing a script that calls Python, you probably still want python3 as your command for compatibility across all current distributions. In other words, the intention of the PEP was not to ingrain Python 2 as the "default" Python, it was to get people to stop making assumptions about what Python version they would get and use the python2 and python3 commands instead. I do agree that it has had that effect.
    - int_19h 7y ago
      The original recommendation had to be made, because at the time, there was a lot of software from pre-Py3 days that would have #!/usr/bin/env python, and that was broken badly if it was pointing at Python 3. They have changed the PEP now that Python 2 is reaching EOL, since it wouldn't make sense to demand "python" to be an alias for an unsupported version.

jonfw 7y ago

That's not a python thing- that most likely has to do with your package manager. In my archlinux installation, python resolves to 3, and I have to use python2 if I want 2

izolate 7y ago
Well, PEP 394 suggested it be this way, so Python is also a bit complicit.
- bscphil 7y ago
  As the history section of that PEP notes, it was actually written in part as a response to distributions like Arch changing the default Python to Python3. Although it's true that the PEP originally said that python should point to Python2 (it doesn't any more), it also said that code requiring a specific version of Python shouldn't assume anything about the system default Python, instead using either python2 or python3 - and requests that distributors of Python provide these commands. This suggestion was adopted by nearly everyone, including Arch Linux. If you're writing a script that calls Python, you probably still want python3 as your command for compatibility across all current distributions. In other words, the intention of the PEP was not to ingrain Python 2 as the "default" Python, it was to get people to stop making assumptions about what Python version they would get and use the python2 and python3 commands instead. I do agree that it has had that effect.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    The original recommendation had to be made, because at the time, there was a lot of software from pre-Py3 days that would have #!/usr/bin/env python, and that was broken badly if it was pointing at Python 3. They have changed the PEP now that Python 2 is reaching EOL, since it wouldn't make sense to demand "python" to be an alias for an unsupported version.