Hmm, it seems to me we should discussing this on #727003, where you
asked for the switch to be done in the first place.
Matthias Klose <d...@debian.org> writes:
> Control: reopen -1
>
> so this is a very generic claim ("breaks everything") without giving any
> concrete package.
Well, considering that the technical claims in this bug only had to be
balanced against those in bug #727003 (there are none), and what I'd
already seen without looking terribly hard, I've come to the conclusion
that GDB shouldn't just switch Python versions without an actual
argument being given.
Pros for switching:
* It would help with the goal proclaimed in bug #727003:
"Pretty printers should be ready to be used with python3 for the
jessie release."
* It would motivate Debian people to fix problems that Ubuntu has due
to having already switched. (Wait, remind me how that's a pro for
Debian?)
Cons:
* It doesn't magically complete the goal proclaimed in bug #727003
* It seems to break lots of people's pretty printers and other
scripts. Without particularly looking for trouble, I found:
- libstdc++'s pretty-printers, which are basically the flagship for
pretty-printers, aren't fixed yet upstream (yes, I know they were
working in Debian. That's not the point). And just think, I could
be working on submitting my fix *right* now.
- python3 broke the pretty printers for the hobby project I was
working on (though I think I've fixed them now)
- python3 broke my "qattach.py" script (though I hear someone
commented on the relevant blogpost with a fix)
- Ben Longbons says it broke his extra-Debian pretty printers, and
that his *target* system is still using gdb built with python2
(probably most of this was only said in #gdb on freenode)
* It doesn't seem wise to do this with essentially no warning.
Also, I note that Fedora, who are usually pretty adventurous about GDB
things, don't seem to have switched yet.
So, I'm thinking that, unless there's some urgent reason to do it now
that nobody has mentioned yet, we should take it slowly:
* Guarantee that GDB will pull in the "six" package appropriate for
the Python it's built against (python-six or python3-six)
* Issue a NEWS.Debian bulletin that people should prepare their GDB
Python, in or out of Debian, for use with either series of Python,
in preparation for jessie+1
And, as I guess you've probably seen, Hector suggests that we also:
* Ship builds of GDB against both versions of Python
This would certainly facilitate testing of code with both series, so I
guess we'll probably do that if there are no major objections?
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
