Re: Switching default python to 3.6?

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On 30 August 2017 at 22:25, Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost> wrote:
> Thomas Klausner <tk%giga.or.at@localhost> writes:
>
> > Currently, pkgsrc defaults to python 2.7. The newest python is 3.6.
> >
> > Locally, I've been using pkgsrc with a default of python-3.x for a
> > long time now, and I don't see any breakage because of that. Packages
> > that only support python-2.7 still install that version.
> >
> > I'd like to switch the default to 3.6. Are there any particular
> > reasons I shouldn't?
>
> I'm not really plugged in enough to python to be sure.
>
> But we're only ~20 days from freeze start, and this structurally matches
> some recent destabilizing changes.  In general I'm opposed to signficant
> large-scale-impact changes right before freeze, such as (aside from
> micro/security updates) upgrading perl, clang, or gtk3, or changing php
> versions.  (I realize gtk3 and php haven't caused trouble, and the
> fallout from the new clang was minor, but nobody expected perl to cause
> trouble, and it really did.  I don't mean to object to progress, just to
> separate recovery from progress from the freeze.)
>
> I don't see any compelling arguments why this needs to be now vs for Q4,
> and in particular you didn't propose it 45 days ago :-)
>
> If there aren't serious objections by the time the freeze is over, the
> first few weeks of the new quarter seem like a good time.

I'd like to pipe up in support of the 'lets do this after the freeze'.
I seem to have both py27 and py36 packages installed on most of my
boxes - notably xen seems to be 27 only and meld/libreoffice 36, so
where a package can use either it seems reasonable at this point to
switch to 3.6.

With that in mind it might be good for people to playlocally with
PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT=36 ahead of that (except where it interferes
with testing/updating for the freeze :)

David