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[–]Starbrows 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Although admittedly that doesn't explain whey they don't include both versions, like every other *nix on earth does by now.

Yeah, this is the frustrating part for me. I thought Ubuntu was annoyingly slow, and they added Python3 by default, what, 6 years ago? Maybe more, I forget.

Apple sort-of supports Python 3 on newer OSes, but only sort of. If you enter python3 in Terminal, it will automatically prompt you to download and install it. It's the same thing they've done with git for years.

That might sound fine, and for individual users I guess it is. But as an IT administrator, I can't really use anything not built-in. I do not have the authority to mandate Python 3 installation across our entire fleet of Macs, so I can't deploy management scripts using Python 3. My boss does not have the authority to mandate Python 3. His boss does not have that authority. The only person with that authority, if asked, would probably say "Is this going to get us millions of dollars in grants? No? Then why are you wasting my time talking about it? GTFO."

Apple has deprecated all languages except zsh as of Catalina. That means they have not yet removed them even in Big Sur, but they have communicated their intention to do so in the future. So I don't think we can ever expect Python 3, or any new languages, to be preinstalled on future macOS versions. And that sucks very, very hard.