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If so do you just set the shebang to use that specific environment?
Yes, for instance. In the end roslaunch just starts scripts or binaries (anything executable really). You'll have to carefully manage the environment (such as PYTHONPATH), but as you seem to be mixing different versions of things anyway, you'll have to do that, no matter what.
In a virtualenv (or whatever the flavour of isolation tool is) the interpreter specified in the shebang will be local to that environment. To be able to run a script "in" that environment, all you need to do is use its interpreter. As long as you take care of special environment variables (ie: the ones the interpreter and related tools/libraries/binaries) care about, things should just work.
That's also how catkin_virtualenv deals with this.
I'm not even sure if this would be useful since you couldn't publish or subscribe to any topics with the Python 3.7 node.
Why not? All you need is the rospy library (and messages) to be present on the PYTHONPATH.
I've been using rospypi/simple for that (just because it's stand-alone, small, lightweight, etc).
What do the rest of you do if you need to use a Python 3 specific package with ROS?
In ROS Melodic you mean? That's always going to be somewhat more complicated, as it doesn't support Python 3, so none of the base dependencies will be present on the PYTHONPATH after you source your setup.bash. ROS Noetic only supports Python 3, so you should not have that problem any more. Alternatively: build Melodic from source if you really want a full ROS environment with Python 3 support through-and-through.
I don't think it's currently possible since ROS doesn't like it when you mess with it defaulting to the system wide distro of Python 2.7.
I would say this is not ROS specific: Debian/Ubuntu packages (but the same goes for many more system package managers) just get "tied" to specific versions of their dependencies. There are ways around that, but in the end, those may not be any better than releasing different versions of the packages themselves -- which is what will happen, with ROS Noetic.
Before someone points me to a link of how to use ROS with Python 3, please hold off. I've seen those. I got'em bookmarked, but what if I need to use Python 2.7 and 3.8?
This also doesn't seem ROS specific, unless you are strictly thinking about using ROS tools from the "Python 2 side" to start things from the "Python 3 side". But then I would still expect what I wrote above to hold (ie: use the right shebang).
Mixing different Python versions inside the same virtualenv/pyvenv/whatever is also not possible (without hacks), and the same restrictions and caveats apply here.
if it's currently possible to roslaunch two different python version nodes (one that uses Python 2.7 and one that uses Python 3.7 for example)?
With the appropriate care, I would say yes (I've done it myself), but seeing as it's messy in any case, I cannot guarantee it will work for whatever framework/library/infrastructure you are trying to use.
I would take a look at catkin_virtualenv as well. It's definitely not perfect and comes with its own limitations, but there are Python 2 and Python 3 versions of it, so perhaps it could help you overcome whatever is limiting you right now.
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If so do you just set the shebang to use that specific environment?
Yes, for instance. In the end roslaunch just starts scripts or binaries (anything executable really). You'll have to carefully manage the environment (such as PYTHONPATH), but as you seem to be mixing different versions of things anyway, you'll have to do that, no matter what.
In a virtualenv (or whatever the flavour of isolation tool is) the interpreter specified in the shebang will be local to that environment. To be able to run a script "in" that environment, all you need to do is use its interpreter. As long as you take care of special environment variables (ie: the ones the interpreter and related tools/libraries/binaries) tools/libraries/binaries care about, about), things should just work.
That's also how catkin_virtualenv deals with this.
I'm not even sure if this would be useful since you couldn't publish or subscribe to any topics with the Python 3.7 node.
Why not? All you need is the rospy library (and messages) to be present on the PYTHONPATH.
I've been using rospypi/simple for that (just because it's stand-alone, small, lightweight, etc).
What do the rest of you do if you need to use a Python 3 specific package with ROS?
In ROS Melodic you mean? That's always going to be somewhat more complicated, as it doesn't support Python 3, so none of the base dependencies will be present on the PYTHONPATH after you source your setup.bash. ROS Noetic only supports Python 3, so you should not have that problem any more. Alternatively: build Melodic from source if you really want a full ROS environment with Python 3 support through-and-through.
I don't think it's currently possible since ROS doesn't like it when you mess with it defaulting to the system wide distro of Python 2.7.
I would say this is not ROS specific: Debian/Ubuntu packages (but the same goes for many more system package managers) just get "tied" to specific versions of their dependencies. There are ways around that, but in the end, those may not be any better than releasing different versions of the packages themselves -- which is what will happen, with ROS Noetic.
Before someone points me to a link of how to use ROS with Python 3, please hold off. I've seen those. I got'em bookmarked, but what if I need to use Python 2.7 and 3.8?
This also doesn't seem ROS specific, unless you are strictly thinking about using ROS tools from the "Python 2 side" to start things from the "Python 3 side". But then I would still expect what I wrote above to hold (ie: use the right shebang).
Mixing different Python versions inside the same virtualenv/pyvenv/whatever is also not possible (without hacks), and the same restrictions and caveats apply here.
if it's currently possible to roslaunch two different python version nodes (one that uses Python 2.7 and one that uses Python 3.7 for example)?
With the appropriate care, I would say yes (I've done it myself), but seeing as it's messy in any case, I cannot guarantee it will work for whatever framework/library/infrastructure you are trying to use.
I would take a look at catkin_virtualenv as well. It's definitely not perfect and comes with its own limitations, but there are Python 2 and Python 3 versions of it, so perhaps it could help you overcome whatever is limiting you right now.
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