Should I put #! (shebang) in Python scripts, and what form should it take?

If you have different modules installed and need to use a specific python install, then shebang appears to be limited at first. However, you can do tricks like the below to allow the shebang to be invoked first as a shell script and then choose python. This is very flexible imo:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Choose the python we need. Explanation:
# a) '''\' translates to \ in shell, and starts a python multi-line string
# b) "" strings are treated as string concat by python, shell ignores them
# c) "true" command ignores its arguments
# c) exit before the ending ''' so the shell reads no further
# d) reset set docstrings to ignore the multiline comment code
#
"true" '''\'
PREFERRED_PYTHON=/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python
ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON=/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3
FALLBACK_PYTHON=python3

if [ -x $PREFERRED_PYTHON ]; then
    echo Using preferred python $PREFERRED_PYTHON
    exec $PREFERRED_PYTHON "$0" "$@"
elif [ -x $ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON ]; then
    echo Using alternative python $ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON
    exec $ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON "$0" "$@"
else
    echo Using fallback python $FALLBACK_PYTHON
    exec python3 "$0" "$@"
fi
exit 127
'''

__doc__ = """What this file does"""
print(__doc__)
import platform
print(platform.python_version())

Or better yet, perhaps, to facilitate code reuse across multiple python scripts:

#!/bin/bash
"true" '''\'; source $(cd $(dirname ${BASH_SOURCE[@]}) &>/dev/null && pwd)/select.sh; exec $CHOSEN_PYTHON "$0" "$@"; exit 127; '''

and then select.sh has:

PREFERRED_PYTHON=/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python
ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON=/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3
FALLBACK_PYTHON=python3

if [ -x $PREFERRED_PYTHON ]; then
    CHOSEN_PYTHON=$PREFERRED_PYTHON
elif [ -x $ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON ]; then
    CHOSEN_PYTHON=$ALTERNATIVE_PYTHON
else
    CHOSEN_PYTHON=$FALLBACK_PYTHON
fi

This is really a question about whether the path to the Python interpreter should be absolute or logical (/usr/bin/env) with respect to portability.

My view after thoroughly testing the behavior is that the logical path in the she-bang is the better of the two options.

Being a Linux Engineer, my goal is always to provide the most suitable, optimized hosts for my developer clients, so the issue of Python environments is something I really need a solid answer to. Encountering other answers on this and other Stack Overflow sites which talked about the issue in a general way without supporting proofs, I've performed some really granular testing & analysis on this very question on Unix.SE.

For files that are intended to be executable from the command-line, I would recommend

#! /usr/bin/env python3

Otherwise you don't need the shebang (though of course it doesn't harm).

If you use virtual environments like with pyenv it is better to write #!/usr/bin/env python The pyenv setting will control which version of python and from which file location is started to run your script.

If your code is known to be version specific, it will help others to find why your script does not behave in their environment if you specify the expected version in the shebang.

If you want to make your file executable you must add shebang line to your scripts.

#!/usr/bin/env python3 

is better option in the sense that this will not be dependent on specific distro of linux but could be used on almost all linux distro since it hunts for the python3 path from environment variables, which is different for different distros of linux.

whereas

#!/usr/local/bin/python3 

would be a distro specific path for python3 and would not work if python3 is not found on this path, and could result in confusion and ambiguity for developer when migrating from one distro to another of linux.