[ale] Slightly OT: System default python version

[leam hall]

Not really. Using something like pyenv or rvm adds complication that
may or may not work. If they are a student then reduction in
complexity directly impacts learning potential.

Few students are going to start coding at a level that the system's
base can't take them. Once the initial skills are gained, along with
confidence and a liberal dose of desire, add the packages and
virtualization of pyenv or rvm. Until then it is more likely to cause
the student to use a different language or to drop programming
completely.

Except when you watch people on IRC swear pyenv/rvm is easy but the
HOWTO pages they point you to don't work and they have no clue. Then
it's sort of funny in a sad way.

I've been doing this for a while and still don't care to use pyenv/rvm/whatever.



On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 4:40 PM, Kyle Brieden via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
> I know I'm behind, but I just wanted to bump this response and say that this
> is the correct response.  If he's learning, he needs to learn right.
>
> ---
> Very respectfully,
> Kyle Brieden
>
> On 27-01-2018 00:17, Ted W. via Ale wrote:
>>
>> Maybe I'm missing something here but I have to ask why the student isn't
>> using something like pyenv to configure the version of python and the
>> modules they need for the particular project. In my admittedly limited
>> python development experience developing for older systems (CentOS 5 and
>> 6) it was common for the system to have an extremely out of date python
>> version available in the upstream repositories. Instead of relying on
>> what I could get from the vendor I would use virtual envs to configure
>> whatever version I wrote in and install all of the modules necessary on
>> the target system. Is this not possible or am I missing some piece of
>> the question?
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 05:03:33PM -0600, Todor Fassl via Ale wrote:
>>>
>>> I got a question from a student who is using python. "I'd rather not hard
>>> code in any python version. Is there any reason to have the system
>>> default
>>> be 2 instead of 3?"
>>>
>>> He had asked me to install the python-matplotlib package. I was like,
>>> "Are
>>> you sure you want python-matplotlib and not python3-matplotlib?" He is
>>> still
>>> coding in python2.7 instead of python3 but not by choice. Is there such a
>>> thing as a system default python version? To program in python3, doesn't
>>> he
>>> have to modify his code?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Todd
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>>
>>
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>
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