Bug#653802: removal of python2.6 (and removal of zope2.12 for wheezy)

[Matthias Klose]

On 16.04.2012 08:31, Philipp Kern wrote:
> Is there anything incompatible when going from 2.6 to 2.7?  Because it does
> mean that you need to change all scripts in lockstep with the distro upgrade,
> because 2.7 is not in squeeze and 2.6 is not in wheezy, unless(!) python2.6
> from squeeze is still installable in wheezy (i.e. no conflicts etc.).

the core python packages from squeeze should be still installable.

> The reason to have two versions of 2.x was to avoid this lockstep,

No, this never was the reason.  You do have this kind of lockstep with e.g. perl 
as well.  Having extensions built for more than one version eases the transition 
from one version to the next, but the one to 2.7 is completed.

> especially as
> scripts tend to specify their Python versions in the shebang.

scripts should not hard-code the version specific python interpreter in the 
shebang.  And I'm not aware of packages which explicitly do this.

> If an upgrade does not force python2.6 (and the corresponding python2.6
> modules) to be uninstalled, I think it's fair to drop it from wheezy.  But
> somehow I'm sceptical, that this is true.

of course, if an extension is only available for 2.7, and you upgrade to the 
wheezy version, then it doesn't work anymore with 2.6.

so apparently some release maintainer scripts are written in python. Were these 
tested with 2.7, or even better with 3.1/3.2?

you may want to check
http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2.7.html#porting-to-python-2-7

but the transition didn't look as invasive as the one to 2.6.

   Matthias