RE: [PATCH] scripts/sphinx-pre-install: add '-p python3' to virtualenv

["Bird, Tim" <Tim.Bird@sony.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
> 
> On Tue, 3 Mar 2020 17:07:48 +0000
> "Bird, Tim" <Tim.Bird@sony.com> wrote:
> 
> > The less fragile approach would have been to just
> > always add the '-p python3' option to the virtualenv setup hint,
> > but Mauro seemed to want something more fine-tuned.
> 
> At some point I think we'll want to say that Python 2 just isn't supported
> anymore.  After all, the language itself isn't supported anymore.  Perhaps
> it's time to add a warning somewhere.

Probably.  IMHO always adding the 'p python3' would have been the
first vestiges of such a hint, but maybe it should be more explicit.
A more explicit statement of "watch out if your default python
interpreter is python2" would have probably shortened some of 
my setup time.

Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 both include python3, but have
/usr/bin/python default to python2.  So, while the package recommendations
from the script were good (and sufficient), the virtualenv hint was somewhat
lacking.

And, just for full disclosure, I wish there was a way to mark this type of fix
with a obsolescence  flag so it could be removed later.  This is the type of
thing that gets put into a script as a workaround for a transition period, but
keeps being run 10 years later when it's no longer relevant.  Heck, the whole
virtualenv recommendation might be irrelevant in the next version of Ubuntu
(but maybe the script already figures that out.)
 -- Tim