Why do people write #!/usr/bin/env python on the first line of a Python script?

Question

It seems to me like the files run the same without that line.

Answer 1

Considering the portability issues between python2 and python3, you should always specify either version unless your program is compatible with both.

Some distributions are shipping python symlinked to python3 for a while now - do not rely on python being python2.

This is emphasized by PEP 394:

In order to tolerate differences across platforms, all new code that needs to invoke the Python interpreter should not specify python, but rather should specify either python2 or python3 (or the more specific python2.x and python3.x versions; see the Migration Notes). This distinction should be made in shebangs, when invoking from a shell script, when invoking via the system() call, or when invoking in any other context.