Which Python version to code for?

[Peter Milliken]

Well, you also have to consider the case of different platform ports not
necessarily being the "lastest" version of Python i.e. I am writing
something in 1.5.2 on a VMS box. I believe that a port of 2.X is in the
works somewhere but at the moment I am stuck with 1.5.2.

In my opinion (for what it is worth :-)), 1.5.2 seemed to be a very popular
and stable release, so unless 2.X brought in some feature that you feel you
*really* can't do without, then 1.5.2 would be a pretty reasonable baseline
to use.

Peter

"Charles Crain" <chuxxx at swbell.net> wrote in message
news:tlbbqas5b6hvff at corp.supernews.com...
> I am part of the team working on SCons, the build tool for the Software
> Carpentry project.  We have an interesting quandry before us: what is the
> earliest version of Python we should support?  On the one hand, we would
> like to use the latest and greatest and be able to take advantage of the
> several powerful features added in recent Python releases.  On the other
> hand, we would like to avoid putting any barriers to adoption of our
product
> that might arise from requiring users (particularly those in large
> organizations with high-intertia IT departments) to upgrade Python
versions
> in order to use it.
>
> It occurs to us that this is a general question facing anyone wishing to
> release a Python product.  Do you code for the latest and greatest, or do
> you try to figure out what release is most "common" (in this case, still
> 1.5.2, since it ships with most major Linux distros) and code for that?
Is
> there any consensus as to what to do here?
>
> In particular, does anyone have a feeling for how pmuch of a pain people
> consider upgrading Python versions so that they may run a particular piece
> of software?  In my experience, upgrading Python versions, and even
running
> concurrent versions, is pretty easy.
>
> Thanks for anyone that can help out.
>
> -Charles Crain
>
>
>