From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Krzysztof Mazur Subject: Re: Python extension commands in git - request for policy change Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:41:39 +0100 Message-ID: <20121125214139.GA29465@shrek.podlesie.net> References: <20121125024451.1ADD14065F@snark.thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: "Eric S. Raymond" X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Nov 25 22:42:00 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Tcjxe-0006MH-8Z for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:41:58 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753501Ab2KYVln (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:41:43 -0500 Received: from [93.179.225.50] ([93.179.225.50]:43953 "EHLO shrek.podlesie.net" rhost-flags-FAIL-FAIL-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753474Ab2KYVln (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:41:43 -0500 Received: by shrek.podlesie.net (Postfix, from userid 603) id 47F133B6; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:41:39 +0100 (CET) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20121125024451.1ADD14065F@snark.thyrsus.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 09:44:51PM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > > We're behind the best-practices curve here. The major Linux > distributions, which have to deal with almost the same set of > tradeoffs we do, went to Python for pretty much all glue and > administration scripts outside /etc a decade ago, and the decision has > served them well. > > That, among other things, means up-to-date versions of Python are > ubiquitous unless we're looking at Windows - in which case Perl and > shell actually become much bigger portability problems. Mac OS X > has kept up to date, too; Lion shipped 2.7.1 and that was a major > release back at this point. > What about embedded systems? git is also useful there. C and shell is everywhere, python is not. Adding additional dependency if it's not really needed it's not a good idea. Also not everyone uses up-to-date systems and sometimes you just care about some critical parts and do not touch everything else and there is probably quote large number of systems with python < 2.6. And even when you keep your system up-to-date, there are some GNU/Linux distros that are still supported, but does not provide recent python - for instance PLD Ac, which I still use on some systems and will use until the hardware dies, provides only python 2.4.6 (by the way, important packages like git are of course quite recent there - 1.7.11.1). Krzysiek