Re: [PATCH 0/2] Update Python to current versions

[Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 11:28:53AM +0200, Hartmut Goebel wrote:
> Am 24.04.2016 um 02:18 schrieb Leo Famulari:
> > If we can successfully update to 3.5, that would be best. Otherwise, we
> > should consider using 3.4.4.
> 
> I disagree.
> 
> While Python typically is backward-compatible (except for the big change
> between Python 2 and Python 3), some minor incompatibilities are common
> when upgrading from e.g. 3.4 to 3.5. E.g. in 3.5 some deprecated things
> have been removed [1].

Okay.

> I suggest:
> 
> - Rename "python" (python@3.4.x) to "python-3.4"
> - Add a new variable "python" as an alias for "python-3.4"
> - Add "python-3.5" (@3.5.1) (for now independent from "python"

It should be possible to do these 3 actions without causing any packages
to be rebuilt. I think the first 2 steps should be in one commit, and
the second step in a second commit.

> - Update python-3.4 to 3.4.5

This will require every python-3 package to be rebuilt, so it should be
done on a python-updates branch.

That branch could also include python-3.5, updates to setuptools, sphinx
[0], and other core Python packages.

It would also be good to address these reproducibility bugs in Python's
bytecode compiler:
http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=22010
http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=22533

What does everyone think of this plan?

[0] We need to make Sphinx stop embedding build timestamps:
https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/TimestampsInManpagesGeneratedBySphinx