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There is a age old solution for managing multiple versions of the same software: gnu stow: https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/

No crazy settings in your profile. Downsides are: You need to have root, you can switch any time but different versions don't work at the same time, and it does not work in windows.

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> You need to have root

This isn't true

> different versions don't work at the same time

Within one stow directory: true. But nothing prevents creating multiple directories (I don't think I've ever done that).

You are right, I should have said to manipulate /usr/loca/ you need to be root.

I feel like hardcoding shebang paths and not implementing a good widespread PATH whitelisting/safety mechanism has created far more problems than we should ever have had to deal with.

It strikes me that not for the two above items we might be able to solve this with $PATH resolution and directories filled with symlinks to our "development versions."

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