For people who use this method, (@brianokken I think I've heard you promote it?) do you add that python ->python3 symlink manually or just type python3 everywhere or something else? I feel like I shouldn't have to type python3, since that's the default assumption these days, but I'm not sure if adding a symlink in /usr/local/bin will have side effects with the python installer or #homebrew or something else

@benlindsay I usually create an alias to solve this problem.

@ede That makes sense. The part that gets me though is that I keep hearing the recommendation to use the official installer as the thing to recommend to beginners to help them fall into the "pit of success". Needing to create an alias for "python" to work instead of "python3" doesn't seem to fit that story

@benlindsay I think the problem is Python versioning and what ships with operating systems by default.
Many older programs may assume /usr/bin/python to be version 2 whereas /usr/bin/python3 is typically where Python 3 is installed and how it’s referenced. This includes PIP as well.
Typically, specific Python 3 versions (ie. 3.11) will symlink from /usr/bin/python3.11 to /usr/bin/python3.

@ede That makes sense. But I think it's fair to assume that people working with legacy python2 stuff are more likely to be experienced devs who can figure out all the symlinking and version management stuff themselves, while new users are likely working with newer code where python 3 should be the default. The installation wizard should make python point to python3 by default and allow users to opt out

@benlindsay I think there may be some dependencies that may break if that happens.
Python 3 is not backwards compatible with 2 or earlier, so if a dependency exists in the environment, it may cause unexpected failures.
For example, macOS ships with Python 2.x. Replacing the symlink may cause a break for any macOS dependencies on Python 2.x.

@ede @benlindsay yep. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason. Newer macs don’t have the problem, so maybe a request to Python is in order.
It “should” only be an issue when creating virtual environments. Once in an active venv, the python link exists.
I actually like the absence of a global symlink, because it acts as a warning that I’m not in a virtual environment.
And even for new users, we should be teaching virtual environments, IMHO

@ede @benlindsay However, @brettcannon or other core devs might have better insight into the missing python symlink on macs.

@brianokken @ede @benlindsay https://peps.python.org/pep-0394/ is the original reason, but for macOS specifically, it probably would have broken the old Python 2 install or code that relied/assumed they got the system install. And that system install only just disappeared and I believe the installer supports older versions of macOS that still have a system install. Probably worth opening an issue at https::/github.com/python/cpython to see if it can intelligently add the symlink when safe to.