[Info-vax] Python on VMS

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/16/2019 7:55 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> Be very careful with Python. You would have thought that backward
> compatibility would have been built in but you would be very wrong.
> For example, almost all the stuff builtin to current Linux distros
> requires ver 2.6 or 2.7 but newer versions can be installed to
> co-exist with 2.x "if you are careful"
> 
> Last year, someone on our team carelessly installed ver 3.5 which
> broke YUM, the FIREWALL tool (both CLI and GUI) as well as some other
> stuff.
> 
> http://neilrieck.net/docs/openvms_notes_linux.html#realworldlinuxproblems
>
>  Just yesterday (2019-01-15), someone tried to cut over a new project
> which failed. Why? Python needed to be upgraded to ver 3.6 to match
> the new libraries required to do Active Directory authentication.

Yes. Some of that was discussed here recently.

> Comment-1: I have been installing run-time libraries into VAX, Alpha
> and Itanium for 31-years and have never experienced any breakage with
> compiled programs. Many of these systems just continue to run
> forever. Systems requiring a specific version of Python are just one
> careless upgrade away from failure.

There is nothing unusual in that new code does not run in old
environment - that is standard.

But most like when old code continue to run in new environments.
Apparently "most" does not include the Python guys.

> Comment-2: Python is "very powerful" with interfaces into almost
> everything including MySQL and MariaDB 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)

That is not unique for Python.

But Python is let me call it "convenient" or "practical" - if
one needs to get something done then it is usually very easy
in Python.

Arne