> Alternatively, I think we back out on #12 entirely and don't let formulae depend on Python and go back to using system Python for everything.
Don't like the sound of that because IMO system Python will only get worse over time.
@ilovezfs
I'd say it's better to stick with IMv6.
IM is one of those old, boring, yet reliable tools that many users probably stick into a pipeline (whether that's a wrapper script for batch processing photos, or a server php program handling user submissions, or whatever) and forget about. IMv7 has made some backward-incompatible changes to the command line interface (see https://www.imagemagick.org/script/porting.php), and users probably don't want to deal with those. (No one wants to revisit five or ten-year-old wrapper scripts. Oh and before dismissing my argument as resisting changes, please read to the end, especially the paragraph starting with "IMv6".) What I found most terrifying on https://www.imagemagick.org/script/porting.php about CLI changes was this:
> However the strict order means that you can no longer give operations before providing an image for the operations to work on. To do so will now produce an error.
which implies something as simple as
```
convert -resize 50% in.png out.png
```
would error out. (The order has been considered legacy since the inception of IMv6, see [this explanation](https://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/basics/#why). But still, you can't tell without digging into docs, because there's no warning on the command line.) Fortunately, I just tried 7.0.3-6 and the syntax above still works, so I guess the developers changed their mind (here's an [`imagemagick7.rb`](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/zmwangx/a40b41fe2feb61b6a59aad6a3bc99218/raw/dcd915f230f28d0dc4d31d335c963e6279f2f452/imagemagick7.rb) which you can install alongside `imagemagick` for testing). Still, there are definitely subtle changes — ones that do not lead to errors outright, but those are the scariest, because you'll get something, just not what you wanted.
IMv6 has been out for 12 years; IMv7, less than a year. https://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/ is still on v6, and I'm not sure if http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/ is entirely v7 compatible yet. That is to say, v7 resources are still scarce. If a user is to pick up IM today, they may be better off starting with v7. But for the vast existing user base, v6 is still the safer choice, and the dev team is still updating v6 diligently.
A middle ground might be to provide a `imagemagick7` formula, if there's enough interest.