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

It's recommended way, proposed in documentation:

2.2.2. Executable Python Scripts

On BSD’ish Unix systems, Python scripts can be made directly executable, like shell scripts, by putting the line

#! /usr/bin/env python3.2

from http://docs.python.org/py3k/tutorial/interpreter.html#executable-python-scripts