Live data from Hacker News

What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

developers.redhat.com

1–10 of 63 posts

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#2
> In order to improve the experience for RHEL 8 users, we have moved the Python used by the system “off to the side”

This was a good move.

> we came to the tough conclusion, don’t provide a default, unversioned Python at all. Ideally, people will get used to explicitly typing python3 or python2.

This seems like a principled stance, one I can agree with. But it's probably one RHEL will suffer for. I think they have a lot of share for the enterprise linux marketplace (maybe #1 or #2?), so maybe they can afford it. RHEL customers should dust off their Python2 source and seriously consider migrating to straddle both 2 and 3 for now. Although the fact that RHEL8 provides ten years of Python 2 support means that they're unlikely to feel that pressure any time soon.

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#3
This is such a strange and annoying compromise to make. It's somewhat antithetical to the concept of RHEL versions being a standardized set of packages such that when someone says "I have RHEL 7", you can say "My software will work on that".

Now in order to support RHEL 8, you have to tell them to also have their sys admin install your preferred python.

A better and less bespoke to RHEL solution imo would have been to make an anaconda install or virtualenv the default python for each user.

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#5

This is such a strange and annoying compromise to make. It's somewhat antithetical to the concept of RHEL versions being a standardized set of packages such that when someone says "I have RHEL 7", you can say "My software will work on that". Now in order to support RHEL 8, you have to tell them to also have their sys admin install your preferred python. A better and less bespoke to RHEL solution imo would have been t…

Wouldn't you just specify the dependencies in your installer so it just works?

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#6
post #2

> In order to improve the experience for RHEL 8 users, we have moved the Python used by the system “off to the side” This was a good move. > we came to the tough conclusion, don’t provide a default, unversioned Python at all. Ideally, people will get used to explicitly typing python3 or python2. This seems like a principled stance, one I can agree with. But it's probably one RHEL will suffer for. I think they have a…

The whole eco system stops caring about Python2. Everybody using Python will suffer if they rely on using Python2 until 2030.

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#7
post #5

This is such a strange and annoying compromise to make. It's somewhat antithetical to the concept of RHEL versions being a standardized set of packages such that when someone says "I have RHEL 7", you can say "My software will work on that". Now in order to support RHEL 8, you have to tell them to also have their sys admin install your preferred python. A better and less bespoke to RHEL solution imo would have been t…

Wouldn't you just specify the dependencies in your installer so it just works?

Most people in my field don't use installers or rpms, we just share the git repo directly. I'm kind of pissed off just thinking about how many build systems will break when '/usr/bin/env python' doesn't return anything by default.

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#8
I recently installed OpenSuse tubleweed. I'm not sure if I just had a weird installation, but both python 2.7, and python 3.6 were installed. That's great, but the "pip" command by default was pointed at pip3.6. Imagine how confused I was when I installed a bunch of packages using the "pip" command, but none of them were available from the default "python" shell.

I think the, let's be explicit about what we're installing approach isn't bad.

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#9

This is such a strange and annoying compromise to make. It's somewhat antithetical to the concept of RHEL versions being a standardized set of packages such that when someone says "I have RHEL 7", you can say "My software will work on that". Now in order to support RHEL 8, you have to tell them to also have their sys admin install your preferred python. A better and less bespoke to RHEL solution imo would have been t…

My guess is a lot of sysadmins will just end up installing both 2 and 3.

Re: What, No Python in RHEL 8 Beta?

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you just specify the dependencies in your installer so it just works?

Most people in my field don't use installers or rpms, we just share the git repo directly. I'm kind of pissed off just thinking about how many build systems will break when '/usr/bin/env python' doesn't return anything by default.

Which is fine but how do you specify dependencies right now? Surely a minimal install of RHEL doesn't have everything you need.
Post reply on HN