[SciPy-Dev] dropping python 2.7 and numpy <1.13.3

[Ralf Gommers]

Hi all,

I've always had in mind that SciPy would follow NumPy in its timeline for
dropping Python 2.7. However, as far as I can tell we've never had the
discussion on this list. So here's the proposal:
Let's follow NumPy's timeline [1], which says that from 1 Jan 2019 onwards
new releases will be Python 3 only, and the last release before that date
will be an LTS release. That means SciPy 1.2.0 will be the LTS release, and
1.3.0 will be >= py3.5.

Also, we haven't changed the minimum numpy version we support in quite a
while, we're still at 1.8.2. And that will have to change anyway after
dropping Python 2.7. The current minimum numpy versions we require are:
- py27: 1.8.2
- py35: 1.9.3
- py36: 1.12.1
- py37: 1.13.1
We have always aimed to support at least 4 numpy versions (i.e. 2 year old
versions). The differences per Python version in minimum numpy version are
annoying (we don't consistently check that in our main __init__.py or in
setup.py even), so I propose that for SciPy 1.3.0 we raise the minimum
required NumPy version to 1.13.3. That'll still be 4 supported releases,
1.13.3-1.16.x.

Cheers,
Ralf

[1] http://www.numpy.org/neps/nep-0014-dropping-python2.7-proposal.html
[2] NumPy thread on dropping py27:
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/numpy-discussion/2017-November/077341.html
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