Updating a package on PyPi, testing and etiquette

[Ned Batchelder]

On Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 2:03:04 PM UTC-4, Rob Gaddi wrote:
> So I've got a package I put up on PyPi a while back (ctypes-bitfield, if 
> it matters).  For version 0.2.6 I had access to some older versions of 
> Python and was able to run my test suite on Python 2.6 and 3.0.
> 
> Well, I don't have them anymore.  I've got no access right now to 
> anything older than 2.7 and 3.2, and my primary development environment 
> is 3.4.  But I've also updated the package to support what I consider to 
> be some really nice new functionality.  So, it comes down to two 
> questions:
> 
> A) Is there any easy way to test against an older version of Python?  
> Preferably without trying to install entire old environments and keep 
> them nicely isolated from my actual doing work?  I'm running Ubuntu for 
> what difference that makes.

I've used pythonz (http://saghul.github.io/pythonz/) to install a
variety of Python versions.  It works really well for me.

> 
> B) If I can't manage that, what's the etiquette behind having later 
> versions of a module break compatibility with older versions of Python.  
> I've avoided using features I know are newer, like yield from and Enums, 
> but I won't swear it'll work on 3.0 if I can't test it that way.

No one supports 3.0 any more.  3.2 is kind of the oldest version
that is still reasonable, and many people are only aiming for 3.3
and 3.4.

Just because you are supporting 2.7 and 3.4 doesn't mean you need
to support 3.0 and 3.1.  2.x and 3.x are different languages. Just
as 2.4 is old and often not supported, 3.0 is old and often not
supported.

--Ned.