> Hmm, my initial reaction is that that specific wording is stronger than I had in mind -
> there's nothing really wrong with having a shebang line and execute bit set on a top level
> module and symlinking it from /usr/bin.
Okay.  (On that topic, http://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2011/11/msg00058.html may interest you.)

> The problem is that we're doing those things for modules that we *don't* install as binaries,
> and that's silly
Yep.  Attached patch removes them for 3.3.

> I'd also mention the justification that this is due to such shebang lines creating a
> maintenance problem for handling parallel installations of different Python versions.
I’d rather just say that it’s unneeded.  With all due respect to the original poster, I don’t think this really caused problems.


I will move my addition to the stdlib-only section.  I’m not sure about OS-neutrality; the executable bit is Unix-specific and I’d rather use that exact term than a vague “flagged as executable”.  I’ll make the part about shebangs neutral however, it won’t be hard.

About this part of your proposal:
> Any installed scripts should use a shebang line of the form::
>        #!/usr/bin/env pythonX.Y
Due to the use of distutils’ build_scripts that hard-codes one path, I’m not sure it’s time yet to make that recommendation.  For packaging, I intend to launch a discussion about that behavior, which is often unhelpful.

I really appreciate your taking time to review, and will submit the next revision of the patch here before going to python-dev.